Panem School for the Gifted and Talented
by TWilkins
Summary: AU Highschool- References to the TV show, heroes. With characters references and themes from both. When sixteen year old teen Zephyr is sent to Panem school for the Gifted and Talented with his sister, he struggles to keep his own little secret hidden. But he is not the only one keeping secrets, most other students, and even the school itself, have something to hide. SLASH!
1. Genesis

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**(This was a crossover with Heroes, but changed it when i realized that it would never be seen.)**

* * *

**Genesis**

**Panem School for the gifted and talented, Nebraska, USA **

Sixteen years ago, it happened. An anomaly, or so it was stated. But realistically, this was no anomaly, but a magnificent jump in human evolution. It was, of course, a cosmic influence, but the effect it had was unknown, but it was most likely radiation that it caused. A solar eclipse. That is what it had been, a simple eclipse. Not so simple though. While most stopped to take photos of the darkness, some could not afford that luxury as some women were in labour. It was not all; some women did withhold their labour, which resulted in their child being born outside of the eclipse that blackened the sun. But some were born inside the hour. Thirteen. Ranging all over the world. England, America, Japan, Australia, a collection of places. But the real factor was, that in all of these said births, mutations occurred. Not such useless mutations as an extra toe would provide, but powerful mutations. Useful mutations. It had been steadily going on for many decades now, people developing odd genetic mutations, but the eclipse increased the rate it occurred, and as such, thirteen children were born with the ability gene in one hour, when usually, it would be one a year if they were lucky. Some did not know they had these extraordinary edits in their genetic code, others had discovered it. Some used them for good, others evil and some simply for personal gain. Some abilities seemed to be simply boosts in their everyday lifestyle such as clairvoyance, or enhanced memory. Others granted individuals the power of a god such as a sentient imagination or terrakinesis. But all of those blessed, or cursed, however it was seen by the onlooker, were found by an organisation. An agreement with a particular woman. She held an extraordinary ability, with which she could do anything she so wished, but in order to keep her ability, and not have herself placed on the worlds most wanted list, she struck a deal with the president of the United States. Any boy, or girl, that became blessed with such an alteration, would be found, and brought to a school, a school where they could learn and prosper, their gift being tamed. The school, of course, was not just for those who were genetically special, any who possessed great talent in any academic or artistic or athletic area was also invited, tuition fees paid and of course any from around the world that had the money to afford the best education they could obtain. Panem. It was a place built to protect and guide. But not all would see it as what it was. Some government eyes believed the place to be a testing facility, to experiment on special individuals. But those rumours where quickly shot down. Those who had been graduated from the school, and possessed abilities, would usually stay on, and serve as teachers at the school, something kept largely secret from the pupils. But with the largest ever recorded set of 'talented' individuals reaching the age in which their abilities manifest, they would need to be sheltered away from the world. Superhuman teenagers were still something society could never be prepared for.

* * *

"_Okay then gentlemen." The man said curtly, adjusting the expensive reading glasses that sat on his dainty nose. "You understand why we are here I presume?"  
The men dotted around the table nodded, keeping the silence that the formality of the meeting clearly dictated. It was a court of suited gentlemen, and one woman, a woman who did slightly ruin the look of the occasion. Her lavish pink jacket and skirt combination was in utter contrast to the grey, brown and black that the rest of the room wore. Her undershirt was white however, which did give her something towards conformity, but any level of fitting in that she had was instantly abolished by the atrocity of the wig sitting on her head, a nest of platinum twine that coiled in on itself. It was a wonder she was not taken from the room, she was clearly something more than the other people in there._

"_We have eleven targets…"  
"Sir if I may so interrupt." A man in a tawny brown suit interrupted meekly, clearly worried about the consequences that such an action could have on him. "The research that we have… it suggests the likelihood of thirteen targets, which means that two of our targets have not been identified."_

_The taller man looked at him intently for a moment, as if pondering something, before he sent a hand up to his glasses, and pushed them up slightly, unleashing a mocking scoff that rang through the room, before he silenced the brash questionings of the meek young man. "Do you not think that such a possibility has been accounted for? We crossed referenced the likelihood of location and it leads to the results of the final targets having their births in third world countries, and as you all know the genetic edits produce edits when the child hits puberty, and those without access to the sufficient medical supplies would have died at these mutations. We have eleven targets."_

_The authority in his voice seemed to install a sense of certainty about his knowledge, creating a silent content with the other people that sat in the room with him, solid and motionless as pieces on a chessboard, waiting for the order to strike. It was an odd sight, the room. Eight grown men dotted around a table, looking up at their superior who looked to the best part younger than all of the others. And then the pink woman, looking something similar to Professor Umbridge from the Harry Potter franchise, who was sitting cross legged on her chair, now with a mirror in her hand, applying make-up to her already powdery looking face, not really paying her attention to any of the knowledge transactions that were occurring in the room. _

"_Mr Beetee?" A meek little voice spoke, just from the doorway of the room, which brought the attention of the room's inhabitants. The Woman in the doorway was small and thin, her slender body being dwarfed by the size of the conference room. Her skin was ashen, but remained unblemished, contrasting against the room, which was white and a delicate shade of pastel blue. Her hair was black and long, but tied up in a bun at the present moment, her glasses being the only protection offered to her face from the harsh staring eyes of the room. Any onlooker could tell, from her trembling lip, that she was nervous, and this room was the last place she wanted to be. Then the leather folder she had tightly clutched in her arms was telling a different story, that she would have liked to be there, but her status in the company was not quite high enough for her to be, she was simply running an errand. All her superiors viewed her as good for. _

"_This is Wiress. My wife." The man leading the lecture said, with a rather harsh and grating tone at the mention of his wife. "What do you need?" He said promptly, still keeping a very harsh tone, making her flinch slightly, before she opened the file she was holding, with a quivering hand, and filtered through the paper's inside of it, before she plucked a singular sheet out, and trotted carefully over to her husband, before handing him the paper._

"_It is just some of the details on the Rochefort twins that Lady Coin wished you to have. It details where they live…" She stammered, explaining the document deeply, making sure that her husband fully understood the document, so that he would not have to waste time in scanning over it._

"_What is the rest of this?" He questioned, snatching the folder from the arms of his wife, to which she knew better than to protest to. The folder was cast open, and Beetee's wandering hands filtered through the papers inside, his eyes scanning each document with precision, making sure his wife had not taken any documents of the uppermost importance. His eyes, however, did not meet any important files, simply sheets of his wife's scrawled handwriting, and a collection of equations that dotted each page. Realisation of what this folder was really sunk in when he discovered a page detailing circle theorems, then another detailing on trigonometry. It was simply his wife's lesson plans. Being hired this year to teach mathematics, she had pulled out every stop to try and make herself seem professional, and to be a good teacher, something that he knew was his wife's dream. The leather portfolio that he had cast so violently on the desk had probably taken his wife months to prepare._

"_I'm sorry…" He said, not at all disheartened that he had made a mistake. "I thought it was…"  
"It is okay." His wife cut in, neatly re-ordering the folder, before she picked it up in her arms again, the black leather causing some form of emotional comfort to echo through her body. She smiled softly and turned to leave the room, before she stopped, clearly remembering another task she had been charged with. "Lady Coin also wished me to tell you that she will be accompanying you on the journey to Europe to fetch the new students. And Miss Cresta, her parents have asked if you would be so kind as to pick her up from Prague." Wiress added, before leaving the room, and closing the door quietly, as if any noise would cause a disturbance in the meeting that had already been disturbed. _

"_Well… The eleven targets. Four are in Europe. One is in Asia. And there is also one in Australia. Five live here in America." He started, a display of the world coming up on the screen behind him, with red marks in the area's that were home to any of the aforementioned teenagers. _

"_So…" The woman in pink began, her utterly regal English tone dictating her importance, the first real indication that she had been paying attention throughout the entire lecture, as she moved her chair out and stood up, mincing in her outlandish, pink stilettos. She immediately drew the room to her attention, as she approached the screen, delicately fingering at one of the red marks. "I am to fetch the young lady from japan… What is her name again?"  
Beetee rolled his eyes, clearly not wanting to bow down to this woman, despite her being his superior. She looked at him, her eyes a very odd shade of yellow, before she took a step towards the man, looking at him with a rather sour look._

"_What is her name again?" She repeated, harshly, staking another step closer to the man, so he was now within arm's reach. _

_Beetee mumbled something inaudible, scowling and looking down at the sheet Wiress had provided, ignoring the smouldering glance that the pale woman gave him. She lashed out in a heartbeat, and gripped the wrist of the man tightly, her face rearranging into a cruel snarl. _

"_What was that?" She said icily, pulling a ridiculous pout and staring him in the face._

_He immediately backed down, as if her hand had inspired fear inside him, and her touch was venom to his confidence. _

"_I said that you should pay better attention next time…" Was all he managed before her hand tightened around his wrist, making him grunt in pain, desperately struggling to utter an apology._

"_Remember your place Mr Beetee." She finished, with venom, before she gave his wrist one final squeeze, the loud crack and following grunt signalling that his wrist was broken. When her hand retracted he stumbled to the floor, his glasses falling down onto the carpet, his working arm swinging to support his broken wrist. It was a sight for the people of the conference room, Mr Beetee knocked into submission by a gaunt, pale woman in a wig. But he was knocked, and knocked hard, his ashen skin clearly showing the sweat that was emerging on his brow. He struggled to his feet, obtaining his glasses on the way up, still clutching at his wrist, when the woman asked her question a third time. _

"_What is her name?"_

"_Li Xiaoyu." He spat, not hiding his anger, though if it fazed the woman at all, she didn't show it. _

"_And do we have a member on our staff who speaks Japanese? Because I do not." She questioned again, looking intently at the country of japan on her map. _

"_No…" Beetee began, before the door opened and someone walked in, the smell of liquor that immediately doused the room indicating who it was. Haymitch Abernathy. Looking up at the man provided an immediate assumption of who he was. A slob. Anyone could tell from his scraggily blonde hair and his unkempt beard that he didn't give a toss about looking formal, or being punctual for that matter. His shirt was a deep blue colour, with an open collar with something that could never be considered a tie, around his neck. He was also wearing dull blue jeans, which were a few sizes too big, so he had to constantly pull them up, but that wasn't the odd thing about it all. The odd thing was the bottle of Vodka that was floating next to his head. _

"_Haymitch!" The woman immediately snapped, swooping down on him like a heat seeking missile. "What in the name of god do you call this! Being late! And being so scruffy and…"  
The woman's ramblings went on and on and Beetee zoned out a little bit, glancing down at his phone that was on his desk. He had a new message. He pulled up his phone, drowning out the din from the arguing pair at the end of the table. It was from Lady Coin. Any message from Lady Coin was important, but for her to send a text was impossibly important, she never used her phone. Three words that made Beetee's heart jump. _

_My office now. _

* * *

_Beetee glanced at the floor in worry, before he looked up and was, yet again, met with the figure of Lady Coin, slumped over her desk, reading over some forms. Her face was hidden by her perm of greying hair, which was constantly neatly made. He noticed Wiress hovering in the corner of the room, clearly now serving as her pre-term time admin. Beetee didn't want to admit it, but he felt like a schoolboy who had just pulled a prank. He, Effie, and Haymitch were all stood facing the desk of the head of the organisation, who was finishing off writing up some information about the school rules that needed to be photocopied. It seemed like hours before Alma finally set her pen down on her desk, handing the paper to Wiress, who quickly took it from the room, heading towards the photocopier, which was in a far off location to Beetee, all he could think about was why he was needed so urgently by Lady Coin, and as if to answer his question, she spoke._

"_Wiress, made quite a good point today. If we go with our current plans of leaving tomorrow, then the Students flying in from the rest of the world, will arrive the same time as the other students, and we need to make sure that that clash does not occur." She said matter-of-factly pacing across the room, to peer out of the window. Lady Coin was a bold woman, in her manners and her way. She was wearing a simple grey trouser suit, which made her look a lot more masculine than necessary, but it also added to her powerful stature, which was the main reason Beetee found her frightening. _

"_Effie you will be heading to Australia to fetch Miss Bethany Carver for us, who expressed great joy over the offer, and Mr Finnick Odair, whose parents have requested for him to be brought to the school by our jet, which we will abide. Then you will head to Japan with them to pick up Miss Li Xiaoyu, who I am unsure about, due to their return email being in total Japanese, though Google translate seems to be sure it is a yes." She stopped staring out of the window and took a glance towards the three people, all of whom were stood still and proper, just how they should be in front of her._

"_Now Haymitch. You will take Wiress with you and head to Calafornia, where you will find Mr West Rosen, who proved shifty about it, but willing. Then you will head over to New Jersey to pick up Mr Luke Campbell, who proved reluctant to accept out offer, you may need to encourage him." She started, looking at Haymitch with an evil glint in her eye, running her eyes up and down his bedraggled figure, her face turning to a frown at his baggy jeans. Lady Coin was in fact, rather lenient with clothing when it came to formality, but she did prefer clothes to be fitting. Her eyes glowed a pale red for a moment, before fading back to their unyielding grey, as a belt appeared around Haymitch's waist, pulling a little tighter than necessary, leading him to choke slightly, moving his hands down to the buckle clumsily and adjust _

"_You will then go to Louisiana, and pick up Miss Jacqui Evans and Miss Monica Dawson, both seem willing and content with going to the school, and then you finish off at texus, with Claire Bennet. Now my concern is that Her father, adoptive, is not happy with her going to the school, though her mother encourages it… I believe Wiress should handle this particular visit, as she has more tact then you do, and I feel she will handle it well." She finished, turning away from Haymitch, to look at Beetee._

"_Now. We have Europe. I will also be bringing Cinna along with us in case we have need of him. Firstly we will be heading to spain, where a boy seems to be developing his powers, his parents claim he is a hero but that could change very quickly, we will need to ensure he is controlled." She paused for a moment, walking back behind her desk and picking up a sheet of paper, folded neatly in half, before she continued with her airy speech. _

"_Then Miss Cresta has requested to be picked up, your wife told you no?"  
Beetee responded with nothing more than a curt nod, hid black hair bouncing lightly on his head, his glasses slipping down a little, which he quickly moved back up, before she continued._

"_So we will require a quick stop at Prague but it should stay brief. And then in England we will pick up a Mr Louis Liddell, who is also rather excited about the opportunity. And then to the hardest of our quarry." She paused, looking at the sheet of paper and frowning deeply, walking absentmindedly back towards the window, which was clearly her thinking space, somewhere she would usually spend a lot of her day._

"_It is unheard of to have a request rejected like this. Utterly. The Rochefort twins are going to be a handful; we have very little knowledge off them as it seems they do not use their own names, but refer to aliases with everything that they do out of the house. How queer these billionaire families can be." She muttered, a tone of disgust raking through her voice as she told her comrades the information, clearly utterly frustrated with the difficulty of the task._

"_We do not know whether they have grasped their power or not but it is sure to be a challenge to convince their parents to come along. Even the luxury of the dormitory they are staying in will be viewed as mediocre by them." She let out an exasperated sigh, absentmindedly folding the paper in her hand again, before placing it into her breast pocket._

"_The jets are waiting in the courtyard." She said, moving to walk out of the room, followed closely by Effie, ever the kiss arse, then Haymitch, and finally an apprehensive Beetee._

"_Come come Mr Beetee. You are in the big leagues now."_

* * *

__**Remember to review, and if you have any questions, please ask and i will try and answer them in the next note, though i will not give away any vital plot information.**

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	2. Unexpected

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* * *

**Unexpected**

**The Rochefort estate, Winsor, England**

_Oooh, You can dance, you can jive. Having the time of your life._

_Oooh, See that girl, watch that scene, digging the dancing queen._

The alarm blared out loudly, and filled the room with the wonder that is ABBA. It echoed off of the walls and ricocheted through the air, cutting the silence that the bliss of sleep granted. I let out the manliest noise that had ever passed my lips, in the form of a grunt, my eyes stirring slightly. Sleep was so blissful, so pure, that I found there was never a nice way to wake up, but at least ABBA had given me the best of the worst, letting me wake up, and immediately sing along to the tune, getting me out of any morning grump that I could have achieved. The down side to this of course, was that I didn't always want to turn it off, but the knowledge that I only had about four minutes and ten seconds before the 'You are the music in me, reprise' from high school musical would come on, and potentially destroy my life. I let myself lounge in my comfortable bed for a moment longer, taking in the pure luxury of the silk sheets and pillows, smiling at the comfort. I then hoisted myself out of the bed, sitting up and taking a glance around the room, the vivid orange that was splattered across the flawless wooden walls giving me a little bit of encouragement to start the day. Not that I had anything to do other than sunbathe and swim.

Swinging myself out of the comfortable king sized bed, my feet delicately mulching into the thick carpet that decorated the floor, as I stood, stretching my limbs until the joints popped, signalling that I was ready to move. My first motion was to switch off the stereo that was blaring out 'Dancing Queen' rather harmonically, which I switched off, in fear that it would divulge into something unsavoury. My second movement was to the small dish at the side of my bedroom, supported on a mahogany nightstand, laden with lolly pops in every colour of the rainbow, apart from blue obviously. Mindlessly plucking one out of the silver bowl, waltzing across my bedroom to my bathroom in all my glory, due to the fact I found it utterly incomprehensible to sleep with any form of clothing on. The idea seemed appalling. I unwrapped the lolly on my way into my en-suite and discarded the wrapper in the bin neatly situated next to the door to in, knowing that was the exact point that I usually finished with the unwrapping of my sweet, and I stepped into the bathroom. I cringed when I first put the sweet into my mouth, it was sour, either cherry or apple, moments later, I withdrew the lolly from my mouth and glanced at the teeming red colour, it was cherry.

My bathroom was large, my bathtub was almost big enough to swim in, not that I needed to as the house had its own private heated pool. I smiled, and stepped into the walk-in shower, were I turned it on before stepping into the water itself, checking that the temperature was hot enough for me, as I placed the lolly pop back between my lips. The three overhead shower heads flowed instantly, being hot enough for me, and the two waist height water jets were also at a good pressure. I hurriedly pressed the correct button of my water resistant speakers and the spur of ABBA continued, this time however, being the 'Mamma Mia' soundtrack, where again dancing queen played enthusiastically, being sung by Christine Baranski and Julie Walters. With a smile I stepped into the water, blood immediately rushing to the surface of my skin at the heat, the water ruthlessly cascading over every inch of bronze skin. It was only moments before my whole body was soaked, and my hand instinctively reached out for the bottle of my sixty pound shampoo that was on a built in alcove on the wall, sixty pounds not being as expensive as I would have liked, but it had to do. The substance was rubbed into my short, glossy light brown hair, now black from saturation. I followed the shampoo with a bottle of equally expensive conditioner, rubbing it into my hair thoroughly, before the lull of the music drew me in, and I couldn't resist a little sing along.

"… Looking out for another, anyone will do, you're in the mood for a dance." I began singing with the music with happiness, remembering a time that my sister and I had walked through London singing that exact song at the top of our voices. I giggled lightly, and reached for the sponge on the alcove, lathering it with some shower gel, again expensive, before I finally turned the shower off, stepping out to get a soft cotton towel and slinging it around my waist, before I grabbed a second and slung it over my head. I didn't wait long to leave the bathroom, still dripping, as I walked across my abode to look out of my window. It was very windy, but otherwise a very nice looking day. With a confident smirk, I retreated back to my bathroom, hanging the towels back up neatly, before wandering back into my bedroom and heading for the walk-in wardrobe, grabbing a fairly simple two-hundred pound tight, black polo and pulling it on, where it grasped my figure in all of the right places. Then I turned and grabbed my favourite pair of skinny jeans, which incidentally cost me four-hundred and forty five pounds, and pulled them on over my tight, black boxer shorts, which had a rather large power symbol plastered to the side and had 'turn me on' written quite boldly across them. When I had finished with getting myself dressed, I smiled, and strutted from my wardrobe, and then my room, heading for the main lobby, where I could get outside to sunbathe by the lake.

* * *

The day was perfect. Not a single, lone cloud in the blue sky that stretched for miles around, simply a scorching sun that graced Winsor with its unyielding heat. The wind was also just right, not blowing the gale that it was, but now simply whispering, blessing my body with soft feathery kisses of cool relief from the stifling heat. I smiled. It was bliss. Most of my life was bliss actually, ever since I had a particularly agonising few weeks when I was fourteen, things had been better. It was a genetic thing, though the doctors didn't know what it was, but my sister got it a year prior to me, so it was simply some genetic issue my parents had given me. Of course, to say sorry they did by my sister and I a recording studio, which was placed in the house, replacing one of the bedrooms that we did not know enough people to need. My sister and I did enjoy singing, and we were, to be fair, a pretty good duet. But we obviously couldn't publish anything, with my parent's obsession with lying low. They worked hard to get their money, and they wanted to flaunt it in peace without reporters badgering at them every day, which is what would happen if we didn't keep using aliases apparently. Though I think it was just them being paranoid and overreacting. I sighed deeply and went back to relishing the sun, not allowing myself to get distracted by memories. My outfit, which came to the best part of seven-hundred pounds, was discarded on the floor of the decking that my sun lounger was on, me simply lying in my tight black boxer shorts with a pair of three-hundred pound sunglasses on my head. I heard a familiar voice ring out my name, to which I scowled.

"Zephyr…" My sister dragged drawlingly, waltzing onto the jetty that I was currently on, with her usual peppy skip. She was always a little hyperactive, but that was just how I was, and we could be hyperactive together, which I'm sure would have driven our parents collectively insane had we lived in a smaller house, but we didn't, we lived in a mansion.

"Amethyst…" I droned back, using her full name just to irritate her. I looked up, and yes, she had pulled her usual pout, one that signalled she was a little annoyed, but more just trying to get some attention. I looked at her and stuck my tongue out playfully, and she giggled, moving her hands above her head and thrashing her hair about for a few moments, the long, wavy, brown locks shaking, reflecting the light from the sun beautifully, making her hair shimmer with radiance.

"Amy. Amy. Call me Amy. I don't like the stupid name I have. You know that better than anybody." She said, in a false tone of pretend seriousness, though I knew that she wasn't annoyed with me. She knew I was just teasing her. To be fair, I do agree with her. We did have stupid names, but then, our parents didn't exactly have the best names either. Chardonnay and René decided that their children would be given names that were elegant and refined.

"At least you can shorten yours. What to you change 'Zephyr' to without sounding like a total moron?" I said, pouting in the same way my sister did, making her giggle slightly, her brilliantly blue eyes sparkling like the brilliant blue of the sky, only a little darker. To be perfectly honest, for non-identical twins, we looked strikingly similar. We both had the identical shade of brown hair, though mine was much lighter than hers now, bleached from all the sunbathing I did. We also shared the same sapphire eyes, deep and blue; we shared the same nose, the same cheekbones, even the same lips. Body wise we were almost identical, both being slim, and about five foot nine, but she had two breasts on her chest, which were a decent size, not that I was at all interested in such poultry things. And of course, I was pretty well endowed; something that I can honestly confirm my sister was not blessed with, although, as she was a girl, it would be more of a curse than a blessing, but either way, our skinny dipping sessions either in our indoor pool, or lake, had revealed, that she did in fact, have a vagina. We did share the same, porcelain skin, but mine, again, was a tanned bronze now, from my countless hours in the sun whilst my sister stayed indoors and did god knows what.

"It is an awfully nice day today." She changed the subject. "I wonder why it has been so nice lately…" She said softly, looking at me with a mischievous grin on her face, which made me blush ever so slightly, but nothing that would be noticed under the shade of hot read I already was. She was totally right, it had been very good lately, any time I decided to sunbathe, the day would be perfect, we both knew why, and I giggled at the realisation.

"I guess there is just a really warm weather pressure thing passing over…" I drawled, just for fun, because I knew that I would not get around the subject, my sister was a very persuasive person at the best of times, she always got what she wanted, not that I didn't but that is beside the point. Although she already knew the answer to the cause of the weather, she asked anyway, she was just like that; she loved putting things as they were, getting people to admit things.

"Then why is the weather forecast utterly inaccurate?" She asked, looking with a knowing curiosity, with a smile on her face, identical to the one I bore whenever we decided to play at this façade. It was always amusing, though why it was so funny was an unknown reason; it was just simply something to laugh at.

"Because the weather forecast is always inaccurate." I giggled in reply, standing up and getting off of my sun lounger, placing my sunglasses neatly on it, and walking gingerly over to the edge of the wooden jetty, dipping my toe in the crystal clear water, sending ripples to drift all over the body of water. It was warm. I guessed that the sun had warmed it nicely. Sheading my undergarments I took in a deep breath, which blessed my nose with woody, flowery, natural scents, before I took a neat dive into the water. Before I had even managed to resurface there was a second splash from the water next to me, followed by a pale body that I saw through my open eyes, the water being totally pure. We surfaced together and immediately broke into giggles, both of us being natural swimmers, swimming every day did that to you.

"You're such a looser." She said, laughing softly as she moved to lie on her back, floating perfectly on the surface of the lake, whilst I continued to tread water. She was obviously referring to my answer dodging, which made me smile, as I replied to her with a rather fitting remark.

"You're the looser; you are the one who wants me to tell you something you already know."  
I stated confidently, but with a comical edge to my voice so that she wouldn't confuse my humorous intention with spite.

"I just want to hear it from your lips. Again." She said confidently, turning her head to face me and sticking her tongue out. I giggled softly, and she did the same, losing her balance and sinking down into the water ungracefully.

"Do you trust me?" I asked softly, swimming towards her, gently reaching out to touch her shoulder.

"Of course I do baby brother." She said, giggling, looking at me with big eyes.

I smiled, before I shut my eyes and took a deep breath, before opening them and looking up at the sky. I felt it. The power surge that would always rush through me, bringing a low pain that was also a great pleasure. I smiled, and lifted my free hand out of the water, trying hard to keep balance with just my legs, before i started moving my hand in abstract ways. Then the sky began to darken, clouds forming rapidly overhead so fast that the sun was blocked out in mere seconds, and then the wind picked up, going from the soft breeze to a near gale, whipping up the water of the lake maliciously, cutting into the warmth like a cold knife. Then it began to rain. Not just any rain, but freezing cold rain, rain that was so cold it felt like daggers on your skin, but it was not quite at zero, so it remained a liquid, but a cold that would sink into your bones. I drove my strength a little harder, and soon lightning cracked overhead, striking the ground metres from the lake where we were.

"Zeph!" My sister squealed, though I could barely hear her over the wind I was calling down to us. "Zeph! Stop it."

I giggled, a childlike laugh that was taken by the wind, and I eased the clouds away, gently brushing my hand through the air, taking the rain with them, re-creating the artificial tranquillity of the day. We both hovered for a few minutes in silence, before my sister finally spoke.

"How do you do that? I mean, you used to be able to cause it to rain, but it gave you a migraine for three days." She whispered, looking at the sky in awe. "And now you are making thunderstorms quicker than you piss."

"I don't know." I replied matter-of-factly. "How do you use your power?" I asked in return, knowing the answer. "And how do you know how quickly I piss?" I added playfully, a little attempt at easing the tension, which was ignored.

"It's like… Like second nature… I don't know how it works." She said, struggling at any words that could describe it.  
"Exactly. It is the same for me." I finished, ruffling her hair that was soaked to the core, beaming like I had taken something. "I guess I have just learnt to control it, I use mine more than you use yours. Why did you come out here anyway, you usually just stay inside all day."

"Oh my god yeah!" She spurted looking at the house in worry. "Some jet landed on our front drive!"

"Seriously." I returned in disbelief, feeling my eyes increase to the size of saucers.

"Yeah i…"

"Excuse me?" A new voice rang out, one that held untold authority, and clear determination, despite the deep American twinge in it. We both turned to the direction of the voice, and spotted our mother and father, at the shore of the lake, not venturing onto the jetty, looking at each other in a look of bewilderment, with a dark skinned man with gold eye shadow standing next to them. Then at the edge of the peer, closest to us, was a woman in a grey trouser suit with a head of greying hair, offering a hand out to us.

"My name is Alma Coin. I have just convinced your parents to allow you to take accept a place at Panem school for the gifted and talented, one of the best schools in the world." She said proudly, a prudent air clouding any natural mannerisms she wished to convey.

"Never heard of it." My sister brashly said, covering her breasts with her arms, whilst I also moved my hands down to cup my manhood.

"It is in America, and very low lying, but it is a very good school, privately funded, and your possibilities there are endless, your parents have granted permission, and we will be leaving shortly, so I recommend you back your things."  
My sister and I shared perplexed looks, staring blankly at the woman, Alma, such a weird name, then at our parents, who looked rather pleased with something, could have been utterly anything knowing their tastes, and then at each other, when we both blurted out exactly the same thing, at exactly the same time. Some may call it twin telepathy, and frankly I wouldn't blame them, a brother and sister who both had powers over nature could easily have some odd telepathic bond, if we did however, I was not aware of it.

"Don't we get a say in this?" We sang in chorus, which was met by a giggle from the woman, which had an underlying condescending note to it, which patronised us to no end, but much less so than her next sentence.

"Cute… You have a half hour to back and say your goodbyes; it is your parent's decision."

* * *

I struggled to bring my luggage down the great marble staircase, my sister the same. The woman, Alma, had given us no luggage limit, and she would regret that, our own, small rebellion. I had five suitcases, albeit one of them was holding nothing but an electric kettle, four mugs, a few bags of sugar and a couple of boxes of PG tips, then there was a laptop bag that was slung over my shoulder, and a messenger bag containing a couple of notepads, a pencil case and one or two other odds and ends. My sister was struggling with seven suitcases and her own messenger bag, which meant she had her laptop in one of the cases. We descended down parallel staircases and managed to skilfully maneuverer all of our luggage into the hall, where Alma was frowning heavily, creating a very large crease above her brow, which made me war with the laughter that was building in my throat.

"Is there really need to bring so much?" She questioned, but there was no way that we would let her out of it now.

"We have already packed, and it would be impossible to decant everything and start again without spending copious amounts of time…" My sister started, her accent sounding increasingly posh with the use of the more scientific terminology.

"I can assure you that we have packed the essentials. Toothbrush, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, toothpaste, towels, clothes, swimwear, sunglasses…" My list began, droning on, and on before she silenced me, rather rudely, but with professionalism.

"Cinna. Will you be as kind as to fetch Mr Beetee, the Liddell boy, and the Sampson boy from the plain to get some help with the luggage?" She stated, and it became clear that her word was law around her subordinates, clearly the headmistress.

Suddenly something clicked in my brain, and I grabbed the suitcase that contained the kettle and PG tips, and made a move to the kitchen, where I knew there were some essentials I had missed. By the time I was done with my task there was only one suitcase left, and I smirked, taking my current one, now rather heavy with the new weight, and the remaining one that contained the majority of my most expensive and favourite clothing, although my favourite outfit was the one I was in now. My skinny jeans from earlier, combined with the same top, with the sunglasses, I then wore a two hundred pound scarf around my neck, and to top off my expensive look, my two grand leather jacket. I brought the two suitcases to the door, and bumped into a blonde boy who looked about my age, though he did have a bit of a baby face. He gave me a curt nod, and I returned with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, before I took the luggage down the stone steps and wheeled it towards the private jet, which my sister was standing at the steps of. He followed me blindly, and I realised he had been wanting to help, though I could manage, though the steps looked rather difficult, but if they had managed to get the case up that held my sisters book collection that she had likely carted with her, it would all be doable. Another boy approached me now, with rugged, handsome, Latino looks, who took the case with my expensive clothing, as a ashen skinned man with glasses took my other case, immediately complaining at the weight.

"Honey." I heard from behind me, as I turned to see my mother, in tears. "It hurts to send you away like this but I can assure you it will be best for your future…" She started, but I ignored her, as my sister also did. If she was going to cart me off to America, she should expect nothing more than my cold shoulder. My father had known well enough not to bother with saying goodbye; he knew how cold the two of us could be, we got that from him after all.

"I know money can't buy happiness!" I heard my mother tearfully wail from behind me, just at the bottom of the steps I was half way up. "And I know it can't by forgiveness. But please, take this." She presented a small box from her hand, and held it towards me, I wanted to leave it, but anything that small was sure to be jewellery or some other daftly sentimental token, which I would regret not taking.

I sighed, and walked back down the steps, taking the box softly, before my mother tackled me with a ferocious hug, to which I staggered, and would have almost lost my balance if not for the rail at my back.

"Your father is sending you away for schooling, I am sending you for happiness. I expect to know all about him in the Christmas holidays." She whispered into my ear, before releasing me from the bear grip. I knew what she meant. She expected me to meet some boy at the school and fall in love, she knew I was gay, she knew that my sister was bisexual and preferred girls to boys, but she regardless of our sexuality's she did blindly care for our happiness, which made me feel guilty about not saying goodbye, but I lost my chance.

I was soon up those stairs and in the body of the luxurious plane, well not to my standards, but decent, for a jet, and the door was pulled shut. It was moving before I was even in the main body, which was more like a living room than a jet interior, with lush carpets and plush seats. My sister was sat on a small loveseat in the corner, with all of our suitcases placed haphazardly around her. I then felt a little guilty. There were three other teenagers in the jet with us, the baby-faced boy, who had two suitcases, a small, fragile little thing with dark flowing hair and dark green eyes with again two suitcases, and the Latino boy, who appeared to have nothing but a rucksack. I shrugged off the guilt and moved to sit next to my sister, who was looking inquisitively at my suitcase that I had filled from the kitchen.

"What is in this?" She asked, giving it a small kick as the jet took off, making us slide slightly at the incline, with no seatbelts.

"I heard that you can't get digestives in America…" I said in return, my face boasting the pride of my own ingenuity. "Thirty nine packets of chocolate digestive biscuits."

My sister raised an eyebrow, before giggling at me, and patting me lightly on the head, when I remembered the box in my hand, and I reached down to open it. It was a breathtakingly beautiful sight. Yes I was used to diamonds and expensive things, but I didn't expect it in this little box. I pulled it out. Two small necklaces, both with an intricate pattern at the bottom of them, which was locked together firmly. I gently eased the two parts of the pendant apart and handed one half to my sister, as I moved my half back into the box, seeing it as more sentimental than fashionable, she already knew it was from our mother. My sister smiled for a second, happy with the piece of jewellery she had been granted, before her face became flagged with worry, catching my eye, she gestured at the other girl in the jet, who was hunched up on a plush pink seat with her hands over her ears.

"Do you think she is okay?" My sister asked, looking at me and then the girl, who heard my sister's question, and looked up at us with an odd look of hatred in her eyes, before it softened, and she answered.

"I'm just a little scared of flying." She said timidly, her face showing off delicate features that made her out to be very beautiful.

"Don't worry about it. We won't hit any form or turbulence I promise. Isn't that right Z?"

I visibly cringed at her new nickname for me, before I turned to the girl who looked about fifthteen, a year younger than I was. "We'll be fine." I promised, lounging back in the squashy chair, feeling slightly and suddenly useless in the plane cabin. "Are you new to the school?" I asked her, trying to take her mind off of the subject.

"No. I joined two years ago." She returned, rather plainly. I noted that this girl seemed nice, if not a little bit of a drip.

"Well I don't suppose you mind telling us where the school is?" My sister chimed in, knowing we had not been provided the information at all, other than it was in America, and was one of the best schools in the world.

"Nebraska." The girl returned, again, with a tone of utter simplicity.

"That is in the tornado path isn't it?" I immediately asked, before kicking myself. Tornado was probably the last word a girl in a plane, afraid of flying, would want to hear.

"You will need to excuse my brother, he has a tornado fetish." My sister drawled, which lead the girl to pull a rather obsolete face at me, maybe she wasn't such a drip after all. I sighed at my sister's comment however, immediately knowing how she would act around me at the school; banter was her middle name, except it wasn't because her middle name is Chardonnay. I smiled gently, imagining how hard I would find life in a boarding school, rules, restrictions, and of course, the other students, who would probably be a mass of nerds, with a few bands of sporting miracles and aspiring models. So many things that had never been present in my life before now. I sighed. So it begins.

* * *

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	3. The Kindness of Strangers

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* * *

**The kindness of strangers**

**Panem School for the gifted and talented, Nebraska, USA **

I was definitely uncomfortable. It was difficult to be optimistic whilst trapped in a metal cabin masquerading as a jet. But mainly, I was bored. It had been a long flight, not even granting me the need to settle any turbulence, much to my dismay, and I had really not had anything to do. There had been some mindless chatter through the jet and I had learnt the girl who was a little bit of a drip, was called Annie Cresta, and she was from the Czech republic, where she lived fairly well off, I also learnt that she had been going to the school for two years which, as I predicted, made her fifthteen. I had learnt that the handsome Latino boy, was called David Sampson, and he was Spanish, and he for some reason couldn't remember what happened before he got on the plain, which probably meant he was senile. Finally the last boy was called Louis Liddell, and was living in Lancashire, and his parents had also been thrilled at the chance that the school was offering, and he was sent off without his actual consent, much like my sister and I had been.

That had been the duration of the first hour of the flight, the rest, had been slept away by my sister, Louis and David, and the Czech girl had simply sat a read a book, something I didn't want to intrude on, I ended up talking to one of the teachers, Mr Beetee as he had introduced himself, he was a science teacher. He seemed to be fairly nice to me, and we actually had a really good conversation about the school. I learnt that the campus amenities included a swimming pool, to which I was deeply thrilled about, which lead me to explain to the man about how I had swum almost every day since I could walk, leading him to tell me that the only boy in the school who was good at swimming, was the Australian Finnick Odair, the rest of the school being fairly mediocre when it came to that sport. We then went on to have a rather detailed question and answer session about the school day.

The campus had Twelve dormitory's, ranging in luxury as to how well the student was expected to do, he also snidely commented on how the richest ones got in the top dormitory, 'District One' as it was labelled. He went on to talk about the theme of each dormitory, and how everyone on the plane I was on would be in District One, going into considerable detail on how it was the 'District of Luxury' meaning we would only have one roommate, the same as districts two and four. District three was also in the luxury district bracket, but was not treated quite as good as the other three in the four, though Mr Beetee made it very clear that district one was the best by far. The districts in the lowest bracket, districts: nine ten eleven and twelve, had the most people in them, having dorms with thirty six boys and thirty six girls in each, with six people sharing a room that was the same size as one that I would have to share with one person. He also detailed how district one would have twelve boys and twelve girls in, along with a male and female bathroom, which would also contain communal showers, something I was less than pleased about, it meant there was the dangerous possibility of someone stealing my shampoo.

Describing the processes of the school seemed to enlighten me. I would be staying in a room with another boy, assigned at random, and we would share that room for the year, no swaps could be made. He told me how each district had a small cafeteria which would provide breakfast and dinner for only its students, with a big cafeteria in the main school complex serving all students with breakfast, lunch and dinner. There were three lessons a day, each two hours long, with the first lesson starting at ten, the second starting at two, and the third starting at four, meaning all lessons would finish at six every day. There was a two hour lunch break from twelve until two, and during that time we could do whatever we wished. Free periods were also rather generously handed out, another time we could do anything we wished. It seemed to be quite nice.

I had enjoyed chatting with Mr Beetee, until a man, Haitian from the looks of him, asked if Beetee would join him in the cockpit for a moment, which ended up the remainder of the three hours left, much to my annoyance, but from the look the Haitian had given me, I didn't want to get on his bad side. Regardless my sourness was fairly short lived, because I did fall asleep, and then, we were landing.

* * *

It was hot, not a comfortable hot that I made in England all of the time, but a humid, scorching heat that was not pleasant for anything, least of all my leather jacket. The group of us moved outside, leaving our luggage for now, because we wanted a glimpse of campus. But instead we saw nothing. Emptiness. Annie however, didn't seem fazed by it, so trying my best to swallow my doubt; I got on with the obvious task. We had barely gotten the luggage out of our jet before a second one landed, very close to our own, and the steps swung down, a few people milling out slowly with their suitcases and bags, but of course, taking desperate glances around to try and see the campus, just like I had. But no, it was barren. We were in the middle of empty grassland, totally empty as far as the eye could see, apart from the narrow strip of grey that was the runway, with one metal post at the side of it. My sister moved to stand next to me, suitcases dotting around us like monoliths in some primal art scene, but with Gucci imprinted on them, as the other group looked at us, apparently in curiosity.

I took my sunglasses from the neck of my shirt, and slid them onto my head, reducing the glare of the sun tremendously, as someone pushed passed me rather rudely. The headmistress, who waltzed up to an ashen skinned woman who seemed to be a member of staff, pulling her to the side and engaging in a conversation with her. Then a third jet drew up, and I started to wonder whether this was some form of slave trading hoax under the charade of being a school, if it were, they would have some trouble with me. The third jet vomited its passengers up as well and a particular noticeable woman, wearing a lemon yellow jacket and a pea green skirt, with skin that looked as though it was frozen it was so white, wandered up to the location Alma was, talking to her in a loud, distinctive accent.

Soon enough, the students from the other jets were shepherded over to where we were stood and it became fairly crowded all of a sudden, as if we were cattle, the thirteen other people in close proximity to me being more than I had really seen in one place before, sure we had a ton of staff at the house, but it was so big that we never saw more than two in the same place. The oldest looking boy there, an absolutely stunningly drop-dead gorgeous one, seemed to be sensing our distress, and clearly tried to ease the tension.

"Don't worry." His strikingly alluring Australian accent rang out, the velvety tones making my heart skip a beat or two. "It's just theatrics. They do it every year on the first day of school." He said, which lifted a little of the tension off of my shoulders. "What is with all the suitcases?" He then asked, turning to me and my sister, as we were clearly the culprits of all of the bags dotted around.

I panicked. Everybody started to look at us and I didn't know how to cope with the pressure in my current state. I was too hot or maybe it was the jet lag, but my head was starting to feel all woozy and I really couldn't think about a rational answer to give. So I just said the first thing that popped into my head. "It's okay. One of them is filled with tea and biscuits."

Then I felt like a nob. Some of the perplexed glances I was getting were putting me off, before I remembered that Americans had odd euphemisms for words, and they called them 'cookies' not 'biscuits'. I swore to myself in that moment that I would never call a crisp, a chip. I shuddered, and my sister laughed again, looking at me with that glint in her eye, which somehow brought my confidence back, and I simply smiled, looking up at the guy.

"And what is in the other eleven?" He asked, looking at the two of us, smirking.

"Err… Y'know the essentials… Clothes, towels, toothbrush…" I began, starting to read out the mental list of everything I had packed.

"Shampoo, conditioner, soap…" My sister added, knowing her also going through a mental list, before we both turned to each other, and began giggling, before I decided to try and be truthful as to why we had so much stuff with us.

"Basically we wanted to bring as much as we could to annoy that woman with the perm because she dragged us away from our home, and we are rich snobs with wardrobes so big we couldn't choose what to bring so we brought it all." I said merrily, in one breath. People were starting to think we were strange. But luckily, a loud cough from one of the teachers saved us, and we turned, to face the row of teachers.

It was an odd line really. The ashen skinned woman, then Mr Beetee, followed by the very pale woman, who was stood slightly ahead of the rest of the group, probably about to make a speech. Then Alma, then the Haitian, then a man who looked like he was utterly drunk. It was a very rag-tag band of people, none of whom looked fitting as teachers, except from the ashen skinned couple on the end.

"Welcome, welcome." The pale woman said, with an overly heightened Queen's English that even my sister and I had never used in our lives. "The time has come for me to select one young man and woman for the honour of being the new student to open the gate, where your name will be forever engraved into the history of this school. Ladies first." She smirked, presenting a small envelope from her breast pocket, and dipping her hand in, before she plucked out a name, and read it aloud.

"Claire Bennet!" She said, far too happily to be natural, as a girl stepped out from the crowd of us, and glanced around unsure, before she walked off towards the woman. Her skin was fairly tanned, just like mine, and her hair was very blonde. She was fairly short, and her body was quite small, but she had a fairly athletic build, like a gymnast.

"Zephyr Rocheford!" The English woman called, and I realised that I had been so busy looking at the girl, that I hadn't even noticed the woman choose the boy's name, it was definitely the heat. I made a mental note to dial that down later, as I walked up to the woman, who smiled, and gripped us both by the arms, pulling us with absolutely incredible strength, past the other teachers, before she stopped us, at a small post on the ground, with two slots in it, as if they should fit credit cards. Sure enough, the next thing we were presented were a pair of credit cards, one red, that Claire took, and one blue, which I took. We poised above the slots in the machine and I looked up at her face, her sparkling blue eyes connecting with my own. She smiled gently, and I smiled back, before the pale woman instructed us to "Go!", and we did so.

The cards slid in flawlessly, and, at first, nothing occurred, and then something did happen. The empty space to the left of us was no longer empty. It was there, the school. It had been… Invisible? So many questions flew through my head at that point, and I couldn't actually comprehend what I had just seen. The entire campus, which was not small, just appeared from nowhere. It was like something I had expected Hogwarts to do. It was incredible. I was still standing with my gaping mouth when the handsome boy strode past, with his two suitcases in tow.

"I told you. Theatrics." He said confidently, winking one of his brilliant sea green eyes and smirking at me in a way that made me want to hit him with a bolt of lightning, I refrained.

I jogged over to my sister, who was also in awe, along with all of the other people in the group, who still hadn't recovered. I felt a little silly then. Why was I so awe inspired by some 'theatrics' I asked myself, taking my laptop bag and messenger bag up and slinging them across each shoulder. I could change the weather at my will, what was so flashy about an invisible campus. With the technology and funding this school had, I'm sure it was just some illusion. Maybe a heat mirage. Either way I shrugged it off, taking two of my cases, and David, the Spaniard took another two, melting my heart with a handsome smile, as the Haitian man, took my last case, and then one of my sisters, with my sister taking two. The remaining four cases were fetched by other people who had spare hands. A rather sweet girl, with dark skin, and a deep southern accent, I was guessing Louisiana, took one case, which dwarfed her own. Then Mr Beetee took two, the ashen woman, who I assumed to be his sister, took the remaining one. I was beginning to feel a little guilty at all of the cases I had brought, but who cared really? I just preyed that the room I was getting would fit them all.

* * *

I sighed, yet again, trying to fit the last packet of chocolate digestives into the refrigerated draw under my bed. It was a quaint little room. Fairly simple. Two beds of a size bigger than a single, but smaller than a double, each with a bedside table, with a lamp sitting on it, with a large window, which doubled up as a window seat and a storage unit, set on the wall in-between the headboards. Of course, I dubbed one bed as mine, the one diagonal to the doorway, and then pushed it up against the wall, rearranging some of the furniture in the process; I knew I would roll out of bed if I didn't. Then at the foot of the bed I had dubbed as mine, was a small desk, with a lamp on it, where my small electric kettle, and two mugs, had made their home, along with one box of PG tips. Luckily I didn't take milk in my tea. The wardrobe was fairly large, standing on the opposite wall to the desk, but it would be a tight squeeze for all my clothes, and then I had to share it with someone, so I filled it to around half way with my best, most expensive clothing.

The room was hardly the luxury I was used it was nice, cozy. I think I could live with it. Even with the dirty great eyesore that was the massive white leather corner sofa, the back of which touched the desk, going away from the wall, meaning the sofa created a form of alcove to the room, where a large flat screen television was, which immediately struck me as being tacky. I sighed one final time, finally managing to get the last packet of biscuits into the fridge draw. I didn't know how my roommate would be on food, but I hoped he wouldn't be an eating machine. Oh god I hoped he wasn't fat. I glanced up at the two unpacked suitcases, the remainder of the PG tips being concealed underneath that window seat.

Clothes that had no room filled one case, the other, held toiletries and towels, along with swimwear and a couple of padlocks, knowing at some point they would be useful. I knew the showers were communal, but in the instruction card in my room, it said every student would have their own storage space in the communal showers which was also the bathroom everyone on the floor had to use, which did not please me.I rooted through the case and took out the four white cotton towels I had brought with me, knowing that a number of things could happen to them, so replacements are always essential, I placed one in my hidden tea cache, and then I neatly put the other three on my bed, taking out three bottles of shampoo, three bottles of conditioner, and an assortment of shower gels, face washes, body scrubs, and various other seemingly useless, expensive lotions and managed to balance them all on top of the towels, before I shoved my padlock bag in my pocket, and hoisted the toiletries up in my arms, and carried them to the bathroom.

The corridor was empty, I expected most people were still bouncing on their own beds and admiring the softness of the mattress, whilst I had almost fully unpacked. Of course, the down side of the corridor being empty was that nobody could hold the door for me. I turned backwards and pushed the door open with my back, before turning into the bathroom, which was clean to be fair, though not as clean as it would be once I found the cleaning cupboard and attacked the room with bleach and a mop. But right now, there was something else drawing my attention, the hot guy.

"Hello again. Zephyr." He said, turning his sea green eyes on me once more, turning around to slump on the wooden cupboards and cross his arms, his posture becoming very provocative. I could tell that although the boy was helpful, he was an attention seeking brat, I bet he has slept with most of the girls in the dorm who were here last year, maybe the boys too. He seemed far too slutty not to have.

"I would say hello… But I am yet to learn your name." I returned, moving to the cupboard that had my name on it, opening it with my mouth on the handle, before remembering that I wasn't alone, and this was a boy's lavatory. I put my belongings in the locker quickly, moving to shut the door, before the boy spoke up again.

"I'm Finnick. And I wouldn't put your toothbrush in there if I were you, or your shampoo. Unless you want it used by every other guy in this place." He said confidently, to which I produced my padlock bag, producing a small metal chain and matching padlock, with key inside, and rigging it around the handle, locking it and taking the key back and pocketing it. I saw the look in his eye then and realised it was my turn to smirk.

"Want one?" I asked, producing another padlock and chain from the bag, throwing it to him following his nod.

"Cheers." He chirped in reply, putting it in the door, clearly saving it for later.

"You're welcome. So you are Finnick Odair?" I questioned looking at him intently, trying to sus out whether he was a nice guy, or a twat, because his mixed messages were driving me insane.

"Heard about me?" He said, his lips making a perfect smirk. "I'm the best shag in campus, anybody can tell you that." He continued, licking his lips provocatively. I decided. Twat.

"Well as Mr Beetee told me about you then I should hope he doesn't know about that." I said softly, looking at him with a little bit of a glare. "No he told me about swimming…"

"Best swimmer Panem high ever had and ever will have. I have the best swimmers too." He added, probably just to piss me off, though I wouldn't let it get to me.

"But what is one guy without a team?" I jousted back in return, and his expression told me that I was right.

"Yeah. The students here are never good enough to make the team, apart from me and Annie." He said, smirking, tilting his head at me in curiosity. "Why are you asking?"

"My sister and I have been swimming all of our lives." I said, pulling a smirk similar to him, tilting my head the same way. "I think we will give you a run for your money." I finished, before nodding at him and turning to leave the room.

* * *

I noticed the hallway was no longer empty, another jet had clearly arrived, because two girls were walking up the stairwell to get to their dorm, two black haired girls keeping their distance from each other, they didn't even try to hide their hatred. Then there were a few more boys in the corridor, one, who was rather tall and muscular, with tanned skin and dark hair, was just going into his room, and another boy, shorter, blonde and strangely adorable, was standing in the corridor, looking at the door to his room in a fair amount of horror, he looked like he might need some help.

"You okay there?" I asked politely, walking up to him, where the look on his face was obviously fear. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I'm fine." He shrugged in return, looking away from me and avoiding all eye contact, clearly just bullshitting because he didn't know who the hell I was.

"Zephyr Rocheford." I announced, holding out my hand to him, which he looked at in fear, before he took it, and shook it timidly.

"Peeta Melark." He said timidly, before he seemed to sense my worry, and he looked up at me with his big blue eyes that made me want to go 'aww' and ruffle his hair, before he practically whispered. "Finnick is my dorm mate."

"What's wrong with that? Other than how much of a dick he is of course." I returned softly, knowing, and preying he would not come out of the bathroom all too soon, he had a fair bit of rubbish in his cupboard.

"He is going to rape me…" He whispered so fearfully, I couldn't help but chuckle, before I patted him on the shoulder.

"Trust me. He won't." I returned confidently, I was sure Finnick had a good heart, he wouldn't rape anyone, least of all such an innocent looking boy.

"B-but he does it to every dorm mate he gets…" Peeta returned, in a fragile voice, looking around as if he was going to get raped any second, to which, I again chuckled.

"I expect he just seduced people into having sex with them, I'm sure he didn't rape anyone." I reassured him, smiling and giving his shoulder an affectionate squeeze.

"B-but that's the same thing isn't it?" He asked softly, to which I rolled my eyes and smiled.

"Peeta. Just don't flirt back and you will be okay." I said softly, noticing someone walk into my room, and not trusting them with my stuff all alone. "See ya'." I murmured to Peeta, walking past him to go to my room, ignoring his whimpers at the loss of my comforting hand. Maybe he did need good shag.

I wandered up to the door, which was ajar, and I gently eased it open, walking in slowly, so I didn't shock the boy inside, not that it even mattered, he was flopped down on the bed that did not have a suitcase on, his bed, with his phone pressed to his ear, three new suitcases in the room, haphazardly on the floor. Knowing better than to interrupt someone on the phone, I wandered over to my bed, neither of us actually openly acknowledging each other, and slipped my hand into the one of the side pockets of my suitcase, bringing out my bottle of 'Clive Christian no.1' and placing it on my nightstand like a trophy an expensive trophy, like my leather jacket, which was neatly hung up in my wardrobe. I opened the draw underneath my bed, and took a book out, my all-time favourite book, 'watership down'. Though I cried almost every time I read it, I still enjoyed it. I picked up where my bookmark was, the last place I had read to, and began continuing.

Getting quite into the book wasn't hard, and soon I was in my own little reading world, my life falling into the pages of rabbits and adventures whilst I still assumed the roommate was on his phone, he was not. I was suddenly disrupted rather rudely from my book, by a loud explosion, followed by the sound of gunfire. Glancing up, I noticed, he had plugged in an Xbox and was playing Call of Duty. I grimaced, remembering playing the game myself a while back and being absolutely appalling at it, actually being so bad I had been emotionally scarred from the experience, or more, my cousin had, being an expert at the game himself, I personally was quite pleased with my score. Placing the book down on the side, I stood up, and wandered over to the back of the sofa, and leant on it a little bit, before vaulting over the back of it and sitting on the seat. It was awkward. We hadn't broken the ice when it was breakable and now I just felt like a bit of a dick, again. I decided to take the usual approach and simply introduce myself to him, who was so glued to his game he probably wouldn't actually acknowledge me.

"I'm Zephyr." I said softly, but loud enough to be heard over the game he was playing, which he was actually doing pretty well at, judging from what I thought was the score, it could have been the time though.

"Cato." He mumbled in reply, eyes still not wavering from the screen, so I took this opportunity to get a good look at him.

He was very handsome; he looked fairly similar to Finnick. He was muscled, maybe more so than the latter, Finnick had more of a swimmers body, and this was just muscle from working out consistently. In the face however, they were very different, Cato's hair being blonde, and spiked up at the fringe, whilst Finnick's was bronze and much more styled. There was no question about who had the prettiest eyes, which was Finnick hands down. Cato's two spheres of grey were rather cold and hard, unwelcoming, unyielding. I couldn't work this guy out, because he was impossible, he had the body of a popular jerk, but then his attitude I had gathered so far was that of a more, go it alone, style person, I guess only time will tell.

* * *

It had been an agonising two hours since Cato had entered the dorm, and he was still on Call of Duty. It made me want to cry that there were three unpacked suitcases in the room, actually three and a half, because there was still a case filled with a library of Xbox games. I had browsed the titles and I had recognised some of them, though this boy was clearly into shooter games, not the RPG's I owned at home, and even from the few shooter games I did have, Halo was the only one we shared. He owned lots of Call of Duty; he had Red Dead redemption, a few fighter games like Tekken, a game I was good at, and one or two zombie games. I had tried a few times to strike up a conversation with him, but he hadn't really been all too keen on the general message of tidy-the-fuck-up. But I did want to get in a conversation with him, but it seemed impossible, until I noticed his phone, with a missed call and two new messages.

"You have a missed call Cato." I said softly, moving over to hand it to him, luckily he had just finished a game, so he was able to look at it, not me, no he hadn't actually looked at me yet.

He didn't even mumble a thank you when he took the phone off of me, he just rang it, and stated speaking, loudly.

"Hey… Yeah sorry I was on Cod… My roommate… One… See ya." Was the extent of his conversation, and he hung up the phone and mindlessly handed it back to me, I didn't take it. "Put it back on my bed." He ordered, not even looking at me, just looking at the doorway now, not even bothering to look at his game.

"I'm sorry you seem to be confusing me with your servant." I said firmly, determined, and too stuck up, to be pushed around like this. I didn't see his face because I wandered back over to my bed, struck at how little I actually had to do. So I got my laptop out. My DVD collection would be big enough to last a while. My password was just being imputed rather swiftly into my laptop, when I heard someone, I think Cato, shout.

"Marv!" Before another boy shouted something utterly incomprehensible as the two boys ran and collided with a huge hug, falling over the sofa in the process. I tried to block them out, but they were so loud, and neither seemed to realise I was still in the room. I sighed, which was again drowned out by the noise. It was going to be a long year.

* * *

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	4. Seven Minutes to Midnight

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* * *

**Seven Minutes to Midnight**

**Panem School for the gifted and talented, Nebraska, USA **

It was so late. All I wanted was to curl up and fall asleep in the bed I was sitting on, but no. No that was not going to happen. Cato was of course, not going to let that happen. Marv had arrived in the room about half past six, and by half past eight, the room was almost full. Finnick had come in, winking at me, which I pretended to ignore, and was then followed by a couple of other tall muscular boy from earlier, with the dark hair and tanned skin, followed by a rather handsome boy, with pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. He was more toned than muscular, similar to Marv, as I knew him, although I sincerely hoped that Marv was not his actual name, because it was painful to think about someone being called Marv… It was worse than Zephyr, but I guess I was bias.

The group of five boys all gathered on the eyesore white sofa, and started to chat, loudly, amongst other things. They were still, 'chatting' at half past eleven, and I was very frustrated, not only had they kept me up, but they had knocked over my kettle with a cushion thrown during a wrestle between Cato and the boy with the green eyes and blonde hair, which did not amuse me in the slightest, as I did not get an apology, and I had to pick the kettle up myself. Thank god that they had not yet tried to include me in anything, although if they had tried I wouldn't have heard it because of my earphones.

I was watching the walking dead on my laptop, and I felt as if I was going to fall asleep, and let's face it, if you can fall asleep watching a zombie program, you _had _to be tired. Eventually I gave up with the walking dead, me watching all of series one of it in one night was not a good idea, and yet I had done it, and was determined not to watch anymore. I mindlessly turned the laptop off and shut it, putting it almost silently back in the drawer under the bed and easing the earphones I was using out and onto the bedside table. It was even later now. Twenty to twelve.

I sighed, and got off of my bed, not trusting these boys to be in the room with me when I was asleep. I clambered up onto the window seat, and looked out at the night sky, it was a hot night, and it needed to be a little cooler; I hated sleeping when I was hot. I took a deep breath, and felt my eyes roll back in my head in the pleasure of the power I was using. The window was open already, and I felt the totally still night pick up into a breeze, I took a deep breath, loving the sensation of the cool wind on my face, but it wasn't enough. It needed to rain too, cool everything down.I concentrated, I felt the rain in me, which is a weird thing to say, but it felt like I did. It was an odd sensation, like nothing before when I had conjured rain. It fell; it was an instant monsoon downpour, much stronger than the gradual incline in rain I would usually bring, but it was actually pleasantly refreshing, the wind picking up some more too, at my request. The air that was entering the room now was utterly refreshing, and I smiled, leaning back to slump against the wall and admire my 'work'.

I then took a glance at Cato and his friends. They still hadn't acknowledged me, and were now playing Cod again and were probably going to be on it for most of the night, all laughing and being too loud, I was surprised the dorm leader didn't hear. She was only downstairs. I then had an idea. They were so involved in their own business that they didn't notice me pack away my laptop and move to the windowsill, but maybe they would hear a thunderclap. I smirked, imagining them all jump two feet in the air, and then I laughed at getting it on camera, quickly swiping my phone off of the bedside table. I used my power once more, the feeling surging through me, and this time, giving me an odd nerve tingling throughout, with an odd, very distant, pain throughout my body. I looked up into the sky, and although I could not see anything, I could feel the thunderclouds forming.

In an instant, lightning struck, and I spun my head around and pressed record on my phone. It took a few moments for the sound to occur, and I was prepared for it, even so, it made my heart speed up tremendously, and think I did move a little bit, but the reaction of the other five. Priceless. They all jumped, but that was the least of their worries. Cato let out something similar to a scream, but a little less feminine, and Finnick also screamed, visibly clutching onto Marv, who looked equally terrified. The other muscular boy simply ran his hand through his hair, whilst the remaining blonde looked at the window, straight at me. It was obviously looking suspicious, but I didn't care, it was so funny that I couldn't refrain from laughing. Which lead all of them to look at me.

"I'm sorry but that was just too funny." I giggled, looking down at my lap, the continual stream of giggles from my lips clearly irritating them. "I saw the lightning, and wondered how far you would jump… It was funny."

They all looked irritated, but that wasn't really my fault, it was the storm, caused by me… But still, they didn't know that, and they had no incentive to believe it.

"I could come over there and push you out of the window you know." Finnick said, with that glint, being the only one who had really spoken to me before. "Unless you have your suitcases outside to catch you." He added cheekily, which the other boys didn't understand, but they weren't there, so why would they.

"Is that before or after you scream and hug someone because some more thunder scares you?" I asked in return, with a smirk, I knew they didn't like me already, but I could tell that the banter with Finnick would at least involve me in the chats, so I didn't fall asleep.

"Did you tell Peeta I was going to rape him?" He then asked, changing the subject because he knew he was losing. "After what I told you in the shower?" He winked at me and I ignored it.

"No I said you wouldn't, but I'll bear in mind to inform him that you get rather cuddly in storms."

He chuckled in response and stood up, walking towards me, the other four boys looked at him with raised eyebrows and smirks, and I could tell he was going to… Do something. I kept eye contact, trying to look nonchalant, but on the inside I was terrified. He got closer and closer with each step, and soon enough, he was actually touching me, only his hand on top of mine, but it was way too much, I had no idea what to do and I panicked. It was probably something to do with me not sleeping for a while as well, but I felt a power surge inside me, I couldn't do anything to control it, but I didn't even think I wanted to, or knew how. He drew down to my level, and his lips found their way to my ear, and he started to whisper. That was it. A flash from outside flew through the room, before all of the lights went out, and the Xbox, before a tremendously loud clap of thunder rang out, and I knew that I had done that, blacked out district one because someone whispered in my ear. I felt like a true fool. But more than anything, I was ashamed. I was blushing redder than hell, but nobody could see, it was pitch black, outlines being difficult to work out, let alone facial expressions.

"Miss Coolidge must have heard…" One of the boys moaned, which amazed me, it looked like I was home free.

"She is deaf, she couldn't have heard." Another retorted, in heavily accented Russian, which sent me back to square one.

"It was the lightning, we should probably go back to our rooms before she comes upstairs and checks that we are all okay. You know what she is like." Finnick said, in an odd tone of voice, and I could tell, from the way he was looking at me, that he knew that wasn't the answer. Even in the dark I could tell his face was ridden with confusion.

To my relief, they left fairly promptly, and soon enough it was just me and Cato, but I wasn't feeling so tired anymore, I was more worried about what had happened earlier.

"You got anything to eat?" Cato grumbled from somewhere to my left, which I did. I used my phone as a light and opened the fridge draw, pulling out the godforsaken packet of biscuits that had been so reluctant to enter it in the first place.

I tore the packet open at the top, and took the top five, or maybe it was six, and placing them on the nightstand, I then threw the packet over to Cato, who it hit somewhere, hopefully the head. I really wasn't getting on with him very well, after all, he had only said about three whole sentences to me.

"Goodnight Cato." I said, rather sourly, as I dived under the duvet, happily discovering that it was quite cold inside.

"Night. Lightning boy." He returned, and I glanced over to him, as the power came back on, leaving the lights and other electronics still off, as I had made a mental note to turn them all of just in case the power did come back on.

I smiled, as I caught the time on the alarm clock. Eleven fifthty three. Still seven minutes to midnight.

* * *

My eyes fluttered open slowly, and I let out another one of my masculine groans. At first I didn't know where I was, but I soon remembered when I looked for the source of the gentle snoring that was coming from my left. Cato. I giggled, and managed to get myself out of bed. It was then that I realised I had never taken my clothes of last night, I had been so tired I had fallen asleep with clothing on, something I was shocked at myself for. I glanced at my clock, and smiled. It was half past eight. My sleep had been enough for a day, a nice shower would fully wake me up, and then I would be fine, so long as Cato didn't hold another slumber party. I quickly shed my polo and jeans, folding them neatly and placing them on the bottom of my bed, not quite sure where any washing amenities were, I would have to ask Cato. Or maybe I should ask Peeta, he would probably know, and answer. I took the key to my padlock from under my pillow, and walked across to the door, checking to make sure Cato was still asleep before I eased it open, and stepped outside. The corridor was empty, and that relieved me, I didn't want everyone to see me on the first day, in my underwear, walking in the corridor. I imagined that most people had stayed up late last night, and were all probably bed ridden, like Cato. I strutted across the corridor, the room I was in being the furthest one from it, and the staircase. When I got to the bathroom, I realised that it was not empty when I got there, because I heard a cupboard being shut. I walked in, hoping that it was someone I didn't know. But of course. I wasn't that lucky. I didn't even get the luck of catching them after their shower. They were about to go in. And they were called Finnick.

"You stalking me?" He asked, turning towards me, a cocky smirk dominating his face.

"I'll remind you that you were the one in my room until seven minutes to midnight." I retuned, walking to my cupboard and taking out a bottle of shampoo and conditioner, followed by some shower gel and my sponge, not really too concerned with the amount of sanitary products I would not be using.

"Speaking of which… That storm…" He started, as my blood turned to ice. What did he know about the storm, was he going to say something about me? I wondered to myself, feeling the blood rush to my skin in embarrassment. I knew that I needed to cover that up, so I pulled my shorts down instantly, hoping to pass off the embarrassment about being naked, not being... Whatever I was. "That was crazy wasn't it?" He finished, reliving me to no end.

"Yeah. I expect it was the heat wave." I returned, feeling everything would be fine, until Finnick started up again.

"I know I am a pretty impressive sight to behold, but don't blush. You have a decent sized package. Bigger a bunch of guys here."

I blushed harder, then even harder as Finnick took of his clothes and revealed his own 'package'. Which was big. I turned instantly, and walked towards the shower block as quickly as I could, whilst remaining as nonchalant as possible.

"Who were those other guys last night? I mean, I didn't pick up any names, other than Marv…"

"His name is Marvel, only Cato calls him Marv." Finnick chimed in, following me all too closely, and settling right next to me, despite all of the showers being free. I sighed, and tried to avoid thinking about him, but it was much easier said than done, even when the water was near scolding my skin, just how I liked it, I still couldn't avoid thinking about him.

"What about the other two?" I asked, trying not to show him that I was feeling so awkward, but instead risking it even more. Even his voice was sexy.

"The Russian one, blonde with green…"

"Yeah I know who you mean." I interjected; annoyed that he was talking to me as if I was stupid.

"Well his name is Viktor, but everybody calls him by his surname, Gloss. Even the teacher's do. And then the other boy, his name is Gale, haven't fucked him, he is dating this really quiet girl from our district, Katniss, haven't fucked her either." Finnick explained, glancing around in panic towards the end. "Ah fuck!"

"What?" I asked softly, rubbing a considerable amount of shampoo into my hair, taking pleasure in the pure luxury of the scents it produced.

"Left my shampoo in my cupboard." He grumbled, moving away, and I don't know why, but I had the sudden urge to be helpful, or maybe I wanted Finnick to smell like me, but either way, it happened.

"Borrow mine." I said simply, handing it towards him, which he took, and began using, and from the amount he kept on sighing and sniffing, he was either allergic to it, or he really liked it.

"Smells great." He mumbled, as I was applying my conditioner, which made me smile. He did like it after all. The smile stayed plastered on my face for a little bit, until it turned to utter shock.

I felt Finnicks hands on my body, and soon enough he was pressed up against my back, I could feel his six pac, and I could feel his… Area… Pressing against me.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have a great arse?" He mumbled, which was far, far off now. All I could think about is his hands running along the sides of my body, and it felt wrong. Not literally, because my god it felt amazing, and I could feel the blood cascading straight to my groin, but I didn't want it. After what Peeta told me I didn't want to be yet another conquest in Finnicks collection.

It was then I realised I still had a hair full of conditioner, and I wasn't even under the water anymore, so I stepped back in, trying to do something to try and normalise the situation, Finnick following me, before his hands shot of my body and he wailed in pain.

"How hot is your fucking shower?" He yelped, looking down at his hands as if they would fall off.

I giggled, and glanced to him with a raised eyebrow, watching him put his hands under a cold shower for some relief from the burns. "Well you shouldn't be touching me. I'll tell Peeta never to shower with you." I said softly, looking at him with my head cocked, before the door swung open, and sounded with a clatter.

Finnick scowled at me, and then stuck his tongue out playfully, before going back to washing his body. How he had managed to leave his shampoo behind but bring his shower gel and sponge I would never know. Soon a third figure plodded lazily into the showers, who I recognised as Marv… Marvel. He turned on his shower and exchanged a few words with Finnick, before they deepened the conversation and I was excluded, again, but at least the risk of an erection lessened, and soon, I was in my own little world. I was washing my underarms when Finnick returned conversation to me, asking yet again, for shampoo.

"Zeph?" Fucking nickname. "Can Marvel borrow your shampoo? The dope forgot his."

I took the bottle from its place on the almost clean floor and handed it to Finnick, exchanging a few words.

"You forgot your shampoo too, dope." I smirked, handing him the bottle, which he passed to the third boy, me still being the shortest, even at my above average height, hopefully Peeta would come in, he was shorted than me. "Is this some form of plan to make everybody smell like me?" I then asked, cheekily, moving my sponge down to my crotch, where I began washing, noticing the totally obvious gaze from Finnick's drifting eyes.

"Totally. By the end of the day everyone will smell like English snob." He chuckled, and although it was a joke, it still hurt. But I decided to play on it and reply.

"Not without some of my two grand cologne." I said, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Marvel shoot a glance at me, and it was a glance of mixed emotions, disbelief, and jealousy.

I smiled and turned off the water, walking behind Finnick and Marvel, reclaiming the bottle of shampoo from the latter, before heading back to my cupboard, but not before shouting a quick. "Later peasants." In the most regal English accent I could muster, before I disappeared into the rest of the day, which I was nervous about.

* * *

The stairs were annoying me, already I didn't want to have to walk down them every day, they were metal and they clanged something awful, but right now, that didn't bother me so much. I wanted to see my sister. I was dressed, which took some time; I had so many outfits to choose from, and I ended up just trying them all on to see what I liked the best. But now I was finally ready, and I was finally going to see my sister, if she was awake, but that was likely because she was always awake before me. The district one 'lounge' as it was called, was very nice.

There was a large classroom off the side of it, the music room, which was the lesson the district head, Miss Coolidge, taught, which made little sense to me as someone said she was deaf. Maybe they were lying. The rest of the lounge was very similar to a first class airport lounge, with plush seats and couches, with small tables containing a collection of coasters and napkins. Then there were some taller tables with bar chairs, but they were more in the window. The area of the 'lounge' was floored with wood, very nice wood, which made me feel bad for wearing shoes, but they were only flip-flops, and they were not dirty at all.

My sister was sitting on one of the lime green loveseats with a book in her hands and her feet up on the plum loveseat that was opposite her, showing off her legs, in her really short shorts. I giggled, and wandered over too her, glancing around the seating area. Peeta was up and sitting at one of the higher tables, alone, with a sketchbook in his hands, and a ginger girl was sitting on a table near him, again alone, with her ipod on. The boy who I had been told was called Gale, was sitting at a table with a girl with brown hair, who I guessed was Katniss. There was also a really strong looking guy with dark skin, who had muscles that were even bigger than Cato, who was sipping a coffee and looking out of the window, obviously contemplating something. Lastly, there was a blonde girl, with exactly the same eyes as Viktor, or Gloss as he apparently wanted to be called, who was just sitting, looking around slowly, maybe apprehensive about something. I guessed that the higher tables where were the loners sat, and the people who wanted to be alone. My sister noticed me as I was coming and let out a big cheer, which lead to the other people in the lounge to look at us, not that I cared in the slightest, I simply jumped on her, knocking us both down onto the floor with a crash, which lead to people looking at us some more, which was a little embarrassing, but funny. We composed ourselves quickly after that, and settled down to catch up with roommate gossip.

"God I've wanted to see you." She started, relief showing in her face. "Roommate… Total drip, didn't say anything apart from her name, Katniss." She added scowling and sending an unobvious glance behind her to look at the girl sat with Gale. "Got a fucking lot to say now hasn't she? Bitch." My sister ranted on, before I giggled and corrected her.

"I don't actually think they are talking, he is just feeding her grapes… Full marks for a healthy breakfast." I returned giggling at my sister, who then changed her expression to a questioning one, which I understood. "I have some jock as my roommate, who invited four other guys into the dorm for the night, one of which tried to…"

"Odd thunderstorm yesterday wasn't it?" She interrupted, her eyes showing a glint of her usual cockiness, which I laughed off, there was no point lying to her, she knew it was me, she didn't know that the second lightning bolt was a reflex of some sort, but I didn't need to tell her that.

"You mind if I sit here?" Someone else asked from my left, and we both simultaneously turned towards the voice, the hot Spaniard, David.

"Not at all." I said quickly, before my sister had time to say some bad lap dancing comment directed at me, which I knew I would be getting a lot of in the next few weeks.

"You two date?" He then asked, which made me laugh and my sister blush, deeply.

"No we are brother and sister." She quickly informed the boy, even though I was sure we made it quite clear on the jet that we were twins.

"But you jump on together?" He asked, probably referring to our little cuddle on the floor earlier, I hadn't realised he had seen it.

"No we just…"

"Kon'nichiwa!" A female, way too high pitched, overly hyper, voice shouted, and it's source had been a young, short Asian girl, with a white t-shirt on that was revealing all of her belly, the button of which was pierced, and a pleated miniskirt on, with a checked tie around her neck and knee high socks and simple black heels on her feet. What was she thinking? Her pigtails that had been dyed with florescent pink streaks told me that she wasn't. "Hello! Hallo! Hola! Bonjour! Namastē! Privet!" Her stream of verbal diarrhoea went on and on, and from what I could tell, she was saying hello in every language there was, me being able to recognise all of them, bar the last one, but the accent she used with it dictated it was Russian.

"God please don't sit near us…" My sister muttered, but then the shit just flew into the fan when David turned to her and said.

"Buenos días, dormir bien?" In his natural Spanish, which brought the little fiend to us like a fly to honey.

"He dormido muy bien, gracias!" She replied, jumping into the seat to the left of him, bouncing on it a few times on account of her size.

"C'est une blague putain." My sister said to me, resorting to French as our mutual language, being something we were both fluent in. Besides saying 'hello' French was something that the girl could hopefully not understand. But what my sister said could have been nicer. 'This is a fucking joke.'

"Qu'est-ce que? Ai-je raté quelque chose?" The girl returned to us, 'What is? Did I miss something?' in perfect French.

I was shocked, as was my sister, who just gawked at the girl in shock. "You speak French, and Spanish?" My sister asked, looking at the short little girl in shock.

"Probably English too, maybe Japanese." I added in, though still a little in shock.

"Lately I have just been able to speak any language, it is really weird…" She returned, way too upbeat for anybody to actually cope with this early in the morning.

"Well, fuck me…" I said, and it turns out it was very loud, because in return I got…

"Long as you don't burn me next time Zeph." The accent, and the godforsaken nickname, it was Finnick.

I was about to respond, without even looking when the little Asian spitfire dove from her seat and ran over to where the new people in the lounge were, and spouted her spur of greetings in half a dozen languages. I glanced up at the group she was talking too. A fairly big group. Finnick was noticeable, but less so than Cato, who had his arm around a pretty blonde girl, who was giggling constantly. Then there was Marvel, and Gloss, both of whom I already was on semi first name terms with, and two other girls, one of which was Annie, who was fairly quiet, and the other being a fairly short black haired girl, and if looks could kill, the poor little Asian girl would be dust by now. The group of people walked past the little girl, who looked utterly put out from the lack of response, but quickly bounded back up to us, David, having another question for her.

"Cómo te llamas?" He asked, looking at her with his big, curious eyes.

"Cómo grosero por mi parte! Soy Li Xiaoyu" She stated proudly, and from our fairly vacant expressions, she guessed we had not understood. "I'm Li Xiaoyu!" She stated again, with an odd sense of self-centred pride.

I looked over to where the big group were now sitting, talking very loudly, and worse, bitching about people loud enough so they would hear. I guessed that these were the bullies of the school, and nobody would stand up to them.

"I got dumped with Foxface this year!" The dagger eyed girl shouted, leading to the rest of the careers to laugh and point. I took a subtle glance over to the girl in question, I had noticed her fairly animalistic like features earlier, but I would never say something to her face. Luckily for her, her earphones were in and she was listening to music on her I-pod, meaning she probably hadn't heard them. But oh the bullies were not done tormenting yet.

"Look at Loverboy! He is staring at Gale again!" The bimbo looking girl perched on Cato's lap shouted, bringing the attention to another boy, who I was guessing was Peeta, because frankly, the black guy didn't seem the type to stare.  
I took another glance, and saw Peeta blush, looking deep into his sketchbook. I felt sorry for the boy. Then I felt sorry for myself, because the Asian girl started up again.

"It should be sunny! I want to go outside!" She wailed, making the whole room turn to look at her. The black haired death stare girl was clearly looking for an insult to throw at the little girl, although it would probably just go over her head considering how naive she was.

"Bro… Please…" My sister whispered to me, as I turned and caught her eye. She wanted me to make it sunny so the girl would wander off and let us have some peace.

I took a look outside, and it was doable, there was only a little cloud coverage from the wind I had called last night, so I could easily disperse it. I took a deep breath. I didn't know whether it would work or not, I had always had direct contact with the sky, but now I was looking at it through a pane of glass. I started channelling my power, it surged though me as usual, building that ultimate ecstasy in my veins, filling me with an odd, comforting warmth.

"Cashmire is such a loner! Cashmire is such a loner! Cashmire is such a loner! And nobody can deny!" Suddenly chanted through the room, knocking my concentration off significantly, my head desperately wanting to spin to look at the chanting taking place, but the last time I stopped concentrating on my weather change, and turned to look at a squawking Peafowl, I summoned a howling gale that uprooted a tree and destroyed the summerhouse, but it was an accident. I didn't even know I could have so much power. I tried my best not to listen to the chanting in the room, which was hard, but I think I managed it because soon enough, the sun was out.

"Cashmire is such a loner! Cashmire…" The chanting continued, until the little girl screamed and ran to the door, shouting what seemed like gobbledegook, but probably was just her exclamations on the sun being out in different languages.

I smiled looking at her, and my sister offered me a high five, which I took, beaming like I had just had a huge triumph. I had I guess. I had gotten rid of that little shit. But as my eyes scanned back to the front of me, they briefly caught with Finnick's, which held an unmistakeable emotion. Curiosity.

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed it, **

**I'm sorry if the french is a little off by the way... :S**

**Please review. **

**xxx**

**\/**


	5. One of us, One of them

**Okay... Still craving those reviews, but alone the words of YoungArtist77 are like worth ten to me :)  
**

**But that doesn't mean i don't want more...**

**Also i know it is like a character soup at the moment, and it doesn't get much better this chapter, but a lot of the characters that are in the story are simply there to bulk up the school. Nothing is worse than a highschool fic that only has like five characters, because like, that is a pretty shitty high school XD.**

**But the characters to focus on become clear soon enough. :)**

**And this is going to be a slash fiction, but i'm not going to reveal who with yet... hehe**

**This chapter may have some hints though, **

**But it may not... **

**And it may have the occasional red herring, because i love those XD**

**Okay, on with the story!**

* * *

**One of Us, One of Them**

**Panem School for the Gifted and Talented, Nebraska, USA**

The morning seemed relatively uneventful after the Asian girl left, the big group continued teasing people, though not any of the new students, I suppose they were either letting us settle in first, or they were trying to find out something about us that they could dig at. Most likely the latter. The lounge became fairly crowded, but we couldn't really go anywhere, because we didn't know our way around campus, but I was told that during our introduction, we would receive a tour from another student, and I assumed I would find my way around soon enough, I found my way around my house quickly enough, they were similar size. We still hadn't seen any sign of our district head, Miss Coolidge, but I assumed she would be along when our introduction was due to start, which was in ten minutes. My sister and I had kept fairly mindless chatter going, but what we really wanted to talk about, we couldn't, not with so many people around, even talking in French would be risky, the little ninja girl could be back at any time. The origins of our linguistic skills were from our father, he was French, and whilst our mother was English and always spoke to us in her first language, my father would only communicate in French, leading us to pick up both languages whilst growing up, though we took English as our first language as we did know it better, because of all the television, books, games, and other sources that we had to teach us. But being able to speak French would sure come in handy, as long as the little linguist wasn't around.

The rest of the dorm had slowly descended into the room, a fairly tall boy, with fluffy hair, who was quite cute, came down, talking to the blonde girl, Claire; I had been with when we opened the gates. They came and sat opposite us, David being dragged of by Li, or Xiaoyu, whichever name they used in Japan, I think it is the first. They sat down opposite us, but we didn't really speak, the two of them shared chatter, and the two of us did the same. About non relevant things, general gossip, what our rooms were like, just simple stuff. The Louis boy came down as well, with a rather pug faced kid, with a pretty bad complexion, black, fairly greasy looking hair, sickly pale skin, and a storm of freckles. I took an immediate dislike to this boy, and call me vain, but I knew just by looking at him, he wasn't going to be a very nice person. The last three to arrive were all girls, two dark skinned girls, who both seemed to be from the Louisiana area, on account of their accents, and a blonde, tanned, Australian girl with her hair in a French plait. By now the room was almost full, but luckily Cato and his band of bullies left the room, one of them, I was guessing Finnick, ruffling my hair on the way out, much to my annoyance.

Miss Coolidge was late, but it didn't matter so much, it wasn't like I was overly eager to go and tour campus, I would rather just explore it myself.

When Miss Coolidge finally pitched up, it was ten minutes after we were supposed to start, it was a welcome relief. She was an average height woman, a little shorter than myself, with clean, fair hair that was held up in an up-do that was fairly simple, but very well suited to her face. She wore a simple pair of black trousers with a pair of black shoes on her feet, with a simple white shirt on with all of the buttons done up except from the uppermost one.

"Good morning district one student's." She said, in a very slurred tone of voice, which told me that she was indeed deaf, which made me curious as to how she could be a music teacher.

"Today will be your induction day. It is split into two sessions, one of which will involve touring the campus, the other being a mock up lesson with myself." She continued, the odd word being difficult to decipher, but I think I got the gist of it. She seemed like a nice woman, I had never actually met a deaf person, but she seemed as if she wouldn't let it get in her way, which I found a very bold and positive attitude, but still something that spurred curiosity in me, how would she even be able to tell whether an instrument was out of tune?

"What the fuck's wrong with her? She some sort of spastic?" A cocky, arrogant voice sounded out, with an American accent.

Half of the room span their heads backwards, and sure enough, it was the ugly pug faced kid who I hadn't liked. His face was plastered with an ugly sneer, and he had his arms crossed across his chest as if he was some form of king. Twat. Miss Coolidge didn't seem to know what he said, and I don't think we would need to tell her, from the looks the boy was getting he would probably get punched up somewhere, hopefully. Idiots like him made every teen look bad.

"Well, I will pair you off with some of the kind students who have volunteered to show you around and the premises. Boy's first." She slurred, which made me feel a little bad for her, though I knew that people who were deaf hated sympathy. Well I assumed. I know I would hate it, I hate sympathy, I always have.

She pulled out an envelope from her pocket and opened it, then began reading out our names. "Luke Campbell and Cashmire Gloss." She said first, and I instantly recognised Cashmire's surname. Was it just a coincident she had the same surname as Viktor, Gloss? No I don't think so, it would be way to big a coincidence for them to have the same surname, and the same hair and eyes. Too much of a coincidence. Was he really that much of a bully to be mean to his sister?

"Louis Liddell and Gale Hawthorn." She said next, but I barely took any notice of it, because I was still wondering about the odd relationship that the possible sister and brother had. The next name I did take notice of though.

"Zephyr Rocheford and Peeta Mellark."

I winced a little bit at her destruction of both of my names, neither being entirely because of her deafness, but because Zephyr was a very commonly mispronounced word and the Americans always butcher the French language. But then I realised I would be put with Peeta, which cheered me up a little. At least he would tell me all about the school gossip I wanted to know. I'm nothing if not an optimist.

* * *

Campus was bigger than I had expected, much bigger. Peeta actually made a very good guide, he told me more detail than was strictly necessary, like how the big mansion was where the headmistress lived, along with some of the other teachers, and occasionally students would be taken there for a day or so, and come back a little different. Peeta wasn't the best conversation, but I had found my ways of interesting him.

"You were drawing earlier?" I asked, almost rhetorically, because I knew that he had been, it was almost just questioning what he was drawing, which I was sure he would tell me.

"Yeah… Just a storm, like last night." He returned, still very timidly, it was clear to me that he still felt unsure about me, though I was not sure why.

"Guess you were lucky last night, Finnick was in my room until almost midnight." I returned, playing out on a light hearted joke to try and relax the atmosphere.

"You got put with Cato? Ouch. I'm sorry, he's awful, always has his friends round." Peeta began, not taking it as jokingly as I had intended, but made me think of a good plan to get him to relax a little.

"Look at this." I said with a grin, pulling my phone from my pocket and flicking to the video of the jocks shitting themselves from fear at a lightning bolt. I put it on and turned to volume to full, before holding it up for Peeta to watch. I heard the thunderclap, then a collection of manly screams, before finally, Peeta began laughing.

"Don't let them know you have that." Peeta said through a fit of giggles, pushing the phone back towards me, where I pocketed it promptly. "Cato will break both of your legs." He continued, and I could tell from the shudder that went down his spine that he wasn't joking.

"Cato will _try_ to break my legs. _Try._" I said softly walking along with Peeta, realising I still didn't have all my gossip. "So what is this thing with Finnick, I mean he is a slut obviously but why is he trying to sleep with every student?" I asked, sure that Peeta would be able to shed a little light on Finnick's agenda.

"Not just students, he slept with Mr Beetee once and with Coach Brutus." Peeta muttered in response, once again ridden with nerves despite my attempts to cheer him up. "Apparently."

"Oh… Well why does he, and does he actually sleep with women or is it just guys?"

"He slept with Glimmer, Clove, Annie and this girl from district four who I don't know the name of but I think he just finds the boys easier to seduce."  
"That makes sense, I mean you can always tell if a boy is, y'know, in the mood, but you can't always tell with a girl, well I don't think you can anyway. And plus the boys in are dorm seem easier to get into than a community college." I snidely added, smirking a little at my own joke.

"A what?" Peeta asked in response, clearly not being familiar with the English terminology, over here a college was a big deal.

"Never mind." I said quickly cocking my head around to look at the place we were in, which was just a pinnacle of modernism, must have cost an utter fortune to build, though personally it would only make a small indent in the family funds. "So where is the swimming pool?"

He froze and stopped walking, leading me to go a few paces ahead before I realised he had stopped, turning around to face the boy who had a look of discomfort on his face. "That is where Cato's group hang out, you don't need to know where it is…" He started, and I could tell it was more because he didn't want to go there then because of any other reason, but I was having none of it.

"Listen Peeta. You and everybody else may be scared of them, but I am seriously not, they have nothing on me or my sister. So why don't you just show me where it is like a good little boy." I said, in a more condescending tone than I had intended, which clearly upset him.

"O-okay" He near whimpered in response, which made me feel so guilty, but it was his fault really. But his little face looked so sad I really couldn't help but apologise to him.

"I'm sorry, if you don't want to take me there then just…"

"No it's okay." He said quickly, but I could tell from his tone of voice he was sorely hurt. "I'll take you there, but as long as you don't laugh when they are mean to me." He near whimpered, seeing the cute little boy like this was damn near breaking my heart.

"Why would I? I'm not like that." I responded, putting my hand on his shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze, which I think cheered him up a little bit, because his face lightened up and we continued walking, and soon enough he was humming a tune to himself. I didn't know what it was, it was four notes repeated over and over again, I was sure I had never heard it before, and I guess I was too busy trying to work it out, because I walked straight into someone, and from the amount of paper they dropped, I was sure it was a teacher.

"I'm so sorry sir I wasn't…" I began, moving down to pick up some of the papers before he cut me off.

"Don't worry about it young man, accidents happen." He said, in a very patronising tone that made me want to slap him, but I refrained.

"Err, Zephyr… This is Mr Bishop."

"Please, call me Bob." The man returned, taking the papers off me and looking down at me for a moment too long, giving me a perfect view of his face.

He had a pair of simple, black rimmed rectangle glasses on his face that covered a pair of small, staring blue eyes. His nose was a little too wide to sit comfortably on his face and his snarling, chapped lips were surrounded by a very scruffy field of stubble. The little hair he did have was slicked down and a shade somewhere between grey and brown and his face was slightly sagged with wrinkles, but overall, he seemed okay.

"Zephyr, what an unusual name." He said in the same, condescending tone he had used before, which annoyed me to no end.

"Coming from a Bob Bishop?" I replied, not even thinking that insulting a teacher would be classed as something that could land me in detention.

"Well Mr Rocheford, it seems we have quite the spirit." He said softly, nodding his head with his continual gaze, and he must have caught my shocked expression at how he knew my name, which he revealed. "You and your sister are in my Chemistry class tomorrow." He said with a smile, before Peeta interrupted.

"How is Elle sir?" He asked politely, looking up at the man with curiosity.

"She is good. She is still on campus, now that Wiress has been promoted she has taken over her old job, in fact I am on my way to see her right now. I'll see you tomorrow." He said, rushed, before he moved off around the corner.

When he was gone and out of earshot, Peeta and I continued walking, but I had a couple of questions for him.

"So who is Elle?" Was my first question, wondering why Peeta had asked about her.

"Elle Bishop, his daughter, she graduated last year… She was… Special." Peeta returned, avoiding making eye contact with me.

"What do you mean by special?" I asked, feeling my heart rate speed up, was she like me and my sister?

"We're here." He said, avoiding the question completely, instead pointing at the swimming pool complex ahead of us.

I glanced over at it, a little annoyed at him for avoiding my question like he had, but I knew I wanted to see this place. I walked towards the glass cone-like structure that held a set of revolving doors in the mouth of it, I did like revolving doors. Inside the structure stank of chlorine, a smell that reminded me of home, blissfully so. I think I stood for about five minutes in silence simply inhaling the chlorine smell, and listening to the noises coming from the swimming pool, which was obviously in use.

"We need to head back now…" I heard Peeta mumble from the left of me, which snapped me out of my daydream of nostalgia, and I followed him out, not bothering with the Elle question again, I'd ask Finnick that some other time. But there was still one final thing I wanted to know.

"Y'know… What was that about, the blonde girl talking about you and…"  
"Nothing okay. Just drop it and stop asking questions." He snapped back, I had clearly hit a nerve.

I sighed and didn't bother to apologise this time, all of the things that Peeta hadn't told me, I could just ask Finnick, or maybe Cato. It wasn't a total loss.

* * *

I yawned deeply and slouched back into the chair I was sat on, flexing my legs to the sofa opposite me, narrowly avoiding Claire's legs. It had been a relatively simple induction, though the music lesson we had had was incredible. Miss Coolidge may have been deaf but she was by far the most magnificent cellist I had ever had the honour of hearing. The way she played was phenomenal, it was effortless, it was beautiful. It was almost as if she was some sort of siren, and a very good one too, if her music got any better it would be able to give me an orgasm. Though one thing about her classroom that had struck me as peculiar was the couple of very large cracks in the wall opposite where she was playing, as if somehow her music had caused structural damage, which in itself was a very unusual thought, and an impossible one at that.

I was passing the time by lounging in, you'll never guess, the lounge, and chatting with Claire and West. They seemed nice enough, and I'm sure my sister would think so too, whenever she came back down from upstairs. God knows what she was doing up there but it might be that time of the month and I knew better than to question it. So, the good points about today so far have been, making new friends, finding out where the swimming pool was and having a brilliant music lesson. Negatives of the day are that Peeta doesn't like me, Finnick wants to shag me and I still have no idea who Elle Bishop is or what is so strange about her. And that I haven't listened to ABBA in twenty four hours, which takes its toll too.

"So, you're like rich right?" Claire asked, derailing my train of thoughts.

"Err… Yeah I guess so." Was my response, and a bad one too, I didn't guess that I was rich, I knew I was rich.

"So… How much is that jacket worth? A hundred, two hundred?" West suggested, looking at me with his hazel eyes and smiling a little, he _had_ to be joking.

"Two hundred? Real leather? Gucci? Try two thousand." I returned, looking at West with a raised eyebrow, and from his face, he was a little jealous, maybe a lot jealous.

It became a little awkward then, and for a few moments there was silence, before my sister miraculously appeared at the bottom of the stairwell, bounding over too us happily.

"Hey? Where've you been?" I asked her, feeling her gently give my hair a ruffle, which she only did when she was very happy and felt that she had accomplished something, usually finishing a chapter on her book she was writing, though I never took too much notice on what she wrote, usually really sappy romance.

"I just finished another chapter." She announced proudly, looking at me with a large smile across her features.

"Congratulations. I got Peeta to show me where the swimming pool is." I returned, with the same pride she had. My own ingenuity worked well to get us one thing in our lives that we could relate to, and I was proud of that.

"Okay you win." My sister returned, not even bothering to sit down as she knew we would be leaving in a matter of seconds. "Shall we go for a dip then?" She asked, obviously a rhetorical question, because she knew I would want to go for a swim.

"Hell yeah." I returned with a smile, before I stood up, and turned to West and Claire. "Do you want to come too?" I asked them both, looking from the boy to the girl, with a questioning eyebrow raised.

"Claire?" West asked, as if it was her choice for both of them, it was painfully obvious that he fancied her.

"Sure. Why not?" She returned, standing up, her tanned legs blushing a little in her skirt that was just a little too short.

"Meet you back down here in five?" I asked, but people had already began moving, and I knew that it didn't matter so much that I wasn't going to walk with West, because quite frankly he seemed a little bit stalkerish, and too much like an ignorant little lapdog to Claire.

We walked up the stairs as a group, but split off quickly, the girls taking the next staircase up and West and I going along the corridor into the boy's dorm, where he took the first door on the right, and I took the last door on the left. The room was empty and it didn't take me very long to grab my towel and my swimming shorts, which hadn't really seen much use since my skinny dipping preference kicked in, but I guessed that skinny dipping here would not be the best idea there was, particularly with Finnick seemingly everywhere that I go. I was the second one back downstairs, West was the first. We didn't speak, which made it difficult for me not to giggle, as I usually did in awkward moments, and thinking about the awkwardness made me want to giggle even more.

Finally my sister and Claire came down, both with bags, something we boys had not thought of, much to my shame, and I lead them across campus. It was fairly close to the district four building, and when we got inside the amount of splashing that was there was drastically decreased, I was guessing the band of popular kids had left, and judging from the rhythm of the splashing, I would say that there was only one person in the pool.

Finding the changing rooms was fairly easy, and West and I went into the boys changing room to get changed whilst the girls did the same in their room. West turned his back to me rather quickly, and I felt a little insulted, but the reason was most likely his teenage insecurities. I got my shorts on fairly quickly considering how awkward the material was, the netting inside concealing where I was supposed to put my foot, almost tripping me over twice, something that would have shattered my dignity like porcelain on concrete.

We left the changing rooms quickly, and the girls were both already in the water, where another girl was swimming, quite obviously irritated by the interruption, but it was a free pool. West took the easy option and eased his way into the pool at the shallow end, something that I really didn't want to do. I strutted to the deep end and dove in neatly, sailing down to the pool floor and then sailing along it with the grace of a fish.

It was nice to be swimming again, and my sister and I played about for a little bit, seeing who could hold their breath for the longest, which was even, both of us winning a game. We even organised a few races between us, the other girl included, though I still didn't know her name. Claire was the slowest by quite a way, being the last one to the end each time, West not far ahead. The other girl was good, she was neck and neck with me, my sister not very far behind. Overall the girl and I were evenly matched, and after about a half hour of pure races after a previous hour of having fun, we were beginning to resemble raisins, the other girl was looking like one herself. We got out and she introduced herself as Johanna, peeling of her swimming hat that made me cringe a little bit, I hated swimming hats. Her hair underneath was fairly short and slightly spikey, but in a fairly stylish way, and it suited her. She was from district seven, and she just needed to get out a little bit, she didn't like her dorm mates. I felt a little bit sorry for her, but in the end, we got put into certain districts for a reason. I think…

* * *

Once we were changed again we said goodbye to Johanna and made our way back to district one. On the way I kicked myself for not asking her about Elle, but I had been swimming, which usually makes me that little bit ditsy, maybe it was the chlorine. We got back to the district at about half past seven, so we decided to have some dinner. The cooking was one thing I was yet to try, the day before I hadn't been so hungry, and that morning I had had some biscuits. But now I was actually getting a hot meal.

The canteen was fairly barren, a couple of the high stooled tables still empty, which I guessed were meant for eating, the comfy seats were not the best on the digestive tract. I glanced over the menu, and it was fairly simple, a meat dish, a fish dish and a vegetarian option with two choices of dessert. I didn't fancy ratatouille but that was mainly because the thought of courgettes made me want to vomit, not to mention the crafty Americanism that was labelled on the board did deter me a little bit too. Who wants to eat something called Zucchini? I mean, sure in scrabble it would be pretty good, but who wants to eat something with more consonants than an episode of countdown? In the end I went for the Fish stew because I really didn't fancy eating chicken. My sister had the same as I did and Claire went with the ratatouille whist to my shock, West took the chicken dish, for once not actually blindly copying Claire. The Fish was nice, not exactly the standard I was used to, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of it, even with some fine French bread to soak up the juices of the broth. It was not purely fish, but clams and mussels too, with fried calamari also lurking in the tomato broth. It was rather pleasant.

For dessert there was a choice between deep fried coconut ice cream, and a chocolate fudge cake. I was a lover of chocolate, but coconut also held a place in my heart, and especially deep fried coconut ice cream, which I had eaten once before in a brilliant Tai restaurant in Manchester. I went with the ice cream, against the decisions of the other three, who went with the chocolate. I was glad that I hadn't gone with the cake as, from the look on their faces, it was very rich, and very heavy, not that the ice cream was not but it did not sit so heavy in my stomach. Melting beforehand and all. And with the teenage law of never leaving any dessert on your plate, I was better off. By the time we had finished, it was half past eight, and I was feeling a little tired, as were the others. We all said goodnight and left for our dorms, obviously not too sleep, but more to chill out. I needed to calm down after the last night. But when I got to my room, I knew that I wasn't going to get the rest I wanted.

"Oh great. You're here." I said, loudly and sarcastically to Finnick, who was sprawled across one end of the corner sofa with Cato and Marvel on the other part, all playing something on the Xbox.

"Can you play? We need another teammate." Cato asked, not even tearing his eyes from the screen, though his response was better than Finnick, who winked at me and licked his lips.

I glanced over at the screen, Halo. I knew how to play that, I had it at home. I walked over to the wardrobe and hung my shorts and towel up inside, before moving to the back of the sofa and hopping over it, kicking Finnick's legs out of the way in the process, to which he laughed, and handed me the fourth controller. I had played the game before, but I wasn't really sure how good I would be at it. Cato started up a match, and it was us four against another four, and the other four were quite good. I died twice before I could even find a gun I liked, much to the other boys annoyance. Marvel was good, so was Cato, Finnick was not quite as good but he still knew his way around the map, which I didn't. In the end, I took to getting on a vehicle and driving around the map beeping the horn constantly, which made Finnick laugh, and Marvel was giggling, though trying to conceal it, Cato looked like he was going to punch me. Turns out it was a good idea because they were so distracted that the others could kill them easily, and I did kill them a few time, though usually on account of bad driving. By the end of the match we were winning by ten points, which gave us the victory. Cato wanted to start a new match but I was still in hysterics, and Finnick didn't help by tickling me. When I had finally recovered and Cato wanted to start a new game, I announced that I needed a cup of tea, and asked if anybody else wanted one, to which Finnick said yes, I think Cato just didn't like me being in the group, and Marvel was looking more and more like his little lapdog. I grabbed a bottle of water from the cupboard under the desk and filled the kettle, putting it on before bringing out a bag of sugar, and two mugs. It was then I realised because I didn't take milk in my tea, I didn't have any, but maybe they wouldn't notice.

"You gonna make us some scones too?" Finnick asked, before laughing a little, to which I held a finger up to him, not turning to look.

When the kettle came to the boil, I poured a generous amount of sugar into each mug and added a PG tips teabag, before filling them with water. I stirred them all with a little spoon I had, and soon enough, I had three nice quality brews. I took a sip of one, and dictated it was good enough, before taking the teabags out and putting them into the bin. I then felt like a waiter handing Marvel and Finnick mugs of tea, but I guess I was kind of. Cato was still sulking.

"Where is the teabag?" Finnick asked, baffling me with such a stupid question.

"In the bin… Where else would it be?" I asked in return, confused by his logic.

"Oh yeah, British people take the teabag out." Finnick confirmed with himself, laughing before taking a sip. "S'good."  
"Thank you." I returned, proud of my culinary skills, if tea making could be counted as culinary.

"So how do British people drink tea?" Finnick then asked, seemingly intrigued by the process of drinking the hot beverage.

I giggled softly. "It is an art as much as anything. True tea drinkers will accompany their tea with biscuits, and dunk them. Then it becomes a talent, mathematical, on how long the biscuit can stay in the tea before it dissolves. You need to calculate, guess, on the right time to produce the biscuit at the precise moment it has absorbed the mixture and you get a perfect bite of biscuit and tea combined."

"Wow you brits take your tea way too seriously." He said in return, leading to Marvel and I laughing, Cato still in a sulk, and I found the perfect time to ask the question that had been haunting me all day.

"Who is Elle Bishop?"

The three boys looked at each other for a moment, and Finnick simply said. "She's special."

"Yeah that's all Peeta would tell me too. Come on, there must be more to it than that." I questioned, refusing to believe that that was it.

"She isn't one of us, she's one of them." Marvel said absentmindedly, before he was silenced from a rather venomous glance from Cato, and I decided to leave it there, though determined to find out what one of them was.

One of us, one of them. I kept wondering to myself, what could that mean? One of us, one of them?

* * *

**Okay, now, you read it, so you could easily just jot a few words down... Anything, big or small is appreciated, but, the bigger the better obviously...**

**Basically...**

**PLEASE REVIEW!**

**xxx**

**Hope you enjoyed the chapter.**

**xxx**


	6. Turn and Face the Strange

******Happy, i got a few new reviewers in the last chapter and i am very happy abut that :)**

**Secondly, this chapter may be a little shaky and uneven, but that is because i was writing it with distractions.**

**Maybe a few more people could leave a review xD**

**xxx**

**Enjoy**

* * *

**Turn and Face the Strange **

**Panem School for the gifted and talented, Nebraska, USA **

For the first time, in a night… I had a decent night's sleep. Thankfully Cato had gone over to someone else's room for the evening, and I was gifted an early night, though he did wake me when he came back in the room and sat down on the wrong bed, which did nothing to please me. But I had slept sound and long, and I was happy and awake at seven. Which left me running to the shower immediately, hoping and praying that Finnick would not show his gorgeous face. For once. But when had my luck ever lasted? Literally a second after I turned on the water, the door opened, and someone walked in, though I had no idea who, I assumed it would be Finnick.

I tried to just get on with the showering, and the other person didn't really appear, until I heard another shower go off at the end, which snapped my head straight around. It wasn't Finnick. Actually it was Peeta, probably worse, and seeing as he left six shower spaces between us, I guessed he was still pissed at me. He was different to how I had expected, as in his body was not bad. He was pretty muscled actually. Then it occurred to me that looking at him in the shower would not be the best idea, so I turned back to the wall, and continued rubbing various lotions into my skin.

I was finished before him obviously, which meant I needed to walk past him, which, though seemingly juvenile, we weren't exactly friends. I did so however, and narrowly avoided dropping my shampoo bottle under him, which could never have panned out well. I shuddered a little bit as I walked out from the enclosed shower area, where the heat had gathered, leaving the rest of the room pretty chilly. I wandered back to my cupboard fairly aimlessly, and opened it with no degree of urgency, before absentmindedly placing my bottles in height order inside, before closing the door softly, and locking in, putting the key by the sink for a second as I prepared to put my underwear back on. But not before a certain person intervened.

"I have a nice view from here. Need a hand with something."

Fucking Finnick! He always seemed to arrive at the worst time possible, let alone he was naked most of the time. Did he just walk from his room with his bits swinging in the breeze? I growled silently, and pulled my boxers up, standing up to full height and reaching for my toothbrush and toothpaste, before I began cleaning my teeth, wincing slightly at the strength of the mint, it was making my eyes water.

"What? Don't I satisfy your visual needs? I am the hottest guy on the planet y'know." Finnick moaned, sounding wrongly childish as he did so. I figured he was joking, because the smile never left his face, but it still made me feel a little guilty, though it shouldn't, it was practically rape, minus a few details.

"I don't want a quick shag and then get tossed aside for the next person you set your sights on." I answer, though with the toothbrush in my mouth it sounded like gobbledygook, to which Finnick smiled, and wandered off to the shower, me turning away so I didn't have the image of his arse stuck in my head for the duration of the day, only to see it in the mirror, to which I groaned.

I quickly finished with my teeth and moved to return it to the cupboard, taking the key from the sink and unlocking the padlock, before returning the toothbrush and toothpaste to their places inside. I locked it again just as the door opened and… Luke? I think that was his name, I might refer to him as pug face though, giving how awful his complexion was. He sneered at me and I ignored him, before I left the room, wondering if Finnick would hit on him… I doubted it, I mean, even Finnick had some form of standards.

The dorm was slowly coming to life, with noises from all rooms, I guessed some people would shower before bed. A few doors opened, and people who I vaguely recognised emerged, most with major bed hair and undergarments in disarray. It was difficult not looking too, I mean, especially the ones with slogans and other novelties on them, because I wanted to see what they said, but then again if they were funny and I giggled, the person wearing them could have taken offence, so I tried not to.

I was back in my room within moments and Cato was still asleep. Now, some people look vulnerable in their sleep, some people does not include Cato. I mean, he looked more threatening like this than he did awake. He was just laying flat back on the bed, arms by his sides, the duvet disarranged slightly to reveal biceps that looked the size of my head. But all in all, I needed to admit it, he was hot. Not in the same way as Finnick, because although he wasn't half as muscular, but he had a beautiful face. It made me think a little more about the little band of bullies that they both seemed to belong too, and I moved over and sat down gently on my squashy bed, propping a pillow up against the wall to provide a little more comfort on my back, whilst I thought about this little group they had.

There was Finnick, who was the school sex icon, who probably made girls and boys alike blush with provocative winks and gestures in the grounds of the campus, and he was also the star swimmer of the school, which put him on good grounds with the teachers, almost a defence mechanism to sweet talk their way out of trouble.

Cato was the obvious, the big muscular sport star, I think they called them quarterbacks over here? Or maybe that was the position they played in American football, the game which actually involves hands more than feet. I sighed to myself, for the first time in my life regretting watching 'Glee' which would have no doubt given me an insight to American school systems, to an extent… I mean, when does a group of social rejects become popular because they are in a musical? Never. Cato was obviously the one who would provide the 'if-you-say-anything-back-I-will-break-both-of-your-legs-and-then-roll-you-down-a-hill' look to any people being teased, as well as joining in the supposed 'fun'.

Then Marvel… I didn't know what to make of him… He seemed like Cato's little lapdog, not doing anything that could displease his master, which made out to suggest Cato as the Alpha male of the group. Marvel seemed to be Cato's little boy pet, best friends easily, and if Finnick is anything to judge by, they were probably fuck buddies too. Marvel seemed like a less important part of the group, but he could be more, he was pretty tall, he had some muscle from what I had glimpsed in the shower the day before, but he was being dominated with those both stronger and more handsome than he was.

Then Vic… Gloss. He was clearly a sadistic bastard. He was insulting his sister for goodness sake. They could have easily been twins too. I would never openly insult my sister, unless it was a joke, or I had a good reason to… But I would never go to that degree of hurt that obviously upset the girl. He seemed another pretty dominating character in the group… But again Cato overruled him.

Then those girls… The blonde seemed like the typical bimbo, who played a similar role to Marvel in the hierarchy of the group's structure. She would fawn over Cato, maybe Finnick and Gloss too… And she would probably pull the old drama queen fake tears trick whenever a teacher came to talk to them, just make them all seem a little nicer. The dark haired one seemed the complete opposite. Maybe a sibling, or a younger relative of someone in the group? Maybe just a younger member of the school adopted into its ranks? Either way it was rather clear she wanted to prove herself as being as tough as Gloss, maybe even Cato when it came to sadism. And god that evil little stare she had… It made me feel uncomfortable, it was an evil bitchy stare. She was like a garden gnome, which maybe doubled as a bear trap… Or maybe had an inbuilt flamethrower… But regardless, she… No she didn't scare me, she unnerved me. There _was_ a difference.

And then Annie… I didn't see her role in the group, she just seemed quiet and withdrawn the whole time, and if she was smart, she would also work to increase the moral standing of the group within the teachers eyes. And I guess if she was on the swim team Finnick would respect her, and I guess that must have been how she got into the gang in the first place…

I don't know about Gale though. He seemed more like a part time group member, maybe just a gaming buddy for Cato? He looked pretty hung up with that Katniss girl, who my sister didn't like… But then I had seen Katniss and the black haired group girl being pretty stony about each other on the first day… Maybe Katniss wasn't 'allowed' into the group… Or maybe she didn't want to be in it… Either way, it was certain that this school had some really weird issues… Maybe it wasn't the school… Maybe it was just the district… District one.

I sighed and slouched down a little, as an alarm released its demonic din into the room, making me scowl, as Cato stirred a little, groaning. He sent a hand out from the side of him to his nightstand, blindly flailing in attempt to find the snooze button, instead knocking over a glass and pushing a magazine onto the floor.

I giggled lightly, before I moved to help him, pressing the small metallic button that he was struggling to hit. He groaned a little bit, and moved his hands up to rub his eyes. How clichés of him. I quickly wandered over to the wardrobe, still only with _my_ clothes in, and sorted through to pick an outfit to wear. From what Mr… Bob had told me yesterday, I had chemistry, which meant that I could be dealing with explosions. So I made a note of that when I picked out a rather swanky little t-shirt, black silk, with a hood and a variety of silver embellishments on the front of it. I then glanced at the window to check what the weather was like today, before giggling and kicking myself. I didn't choose my clothes based on the weather, I chose the weather based on my clothes. Pulling out a pair of chino shorts, I retreated to my bed, donning my garb and deciding to make the day a pleasant temperature, though I did make a mental note to dial it down if it became to sunny, after all I didn't want to bake in my black top.

"Morning lightning boy." Cato mumbled groggily, sitting up in bed and rolling his muscled shoulders a little, before he cracked his neck repulsively. I giggled softly to myself in realisation that it took him longer to wake up than it took me to choose an outfit, which was no short time.

"Morning sleepy head." I replied to him, not wanting to use his first name as he hadn't used mine.

"I had a late night." He mumbled in return looking at me with his two spheres of grey, looking out of place when surrounded by the bronze skin of his face.

"Yeah I know you did, you woke me up at one when you sat on me. You should think about slimming down a little…" I cheekily added, watching one of his eyebrows raise in a sarcastic nature, but he did smile. Cato confused me, when he was alone with me he was almost pleasant, but when he was with other people he was a bit of a twat.

"Maybe you should put some weight on you scrawny fucker eh?" Cato retorted, making me giggle, and blush a little bit, I was underweight, but I liked being underweight. I would much rather be slim than chubby, the thought made me shudder.

"It runs in the family." I chuckled, standing up looking at him with a smile, before glancing at the mess the room was vastly becoming, all Cato's things of course. "Are you going to unpack at some point? Or do you like the room looking like a suitcase proxied Stonehenge?" I asked him, with a sly smile, tilting my head to the side happily.

"CBA." Was his response, before he stood up from his bed, fully naked, I guess people did sleep naked here, I would have to remember that it was okay to do so, I was getting uncomfortable in my boxer shorts, things were too restrained. I tried to avoid looking at his body, but that was difficult, especially with the way he kept on tensing his individual abs.

"Where do we get our timetables by the way?" I asked the naked boy slowly, making sure to keep my eyes fixed on his, so I did not get another image of a less than savoury nature stuck in my head all day.

"Downstairs, Mrs Coolidge has them." Cato replied, to which I thanked him, and wandered out of the bedroom, finally with the comfort of knowing I was unlikely to see any more genitals for the remainder of the day.

* * *

To no surprise, my sister was already downstairs, sitting at one of the higher tables with a bowl of something, I presumed breakfast cereal, but my sister had been known to crave porridge in some situations. I made a beeline for her position in the window and noticed that she had also obtained some food, which was sat in the space next to her, which I sat in.

"I ordered for you." She said softly as I approached, not even looking up from a piece of paper she had in front of her. "I also took the liberty of getting your timetable for you." She continued, handing me a piece of paper as I silently eyed the tall glass of yoghurt and granola in front of me, of course with a hearty amount of raspberries dotted throughout it.

"Thanks but I don't do breakfast…" I said to her, instead taking the timetable, and flicking through to the lessons I had today. Chemistry first period, Food technology second period, and then a free period to end the day. I'd need to find someone to share that with, as I noticed my sister and I had different lessons second and third.

"Come on Paris Hilton." My sister cooed to me, shooting me a glance identical to one my mother often used. "Eat something, I don't want to sit next to you in chemistry and have your stomach rumbling every two seconds…"  
"My stomach doesn't ever rumble!" I protested, to which she giggled.

"Yeah, because at home you always eat." She replied, giggling, pushing the glass closer to me. "Eat. It is like seeds and milk culture and shit with some berries, hardly anything too much."

I knew she was right, I mean, I did snack at home. I sighed in defeat and picked up the sorbet spoon my sister had obviously requested, she knew that I only used sorbet spoons when dealing with most food, apart from yesterday, but I was too hungry and tired to request one. The food was actually nice, and I polished off the glass in no time at all, much to my sisters delight, she would hold this on me forever now.

"Does the phrase, 'One of us, one of them', mean anything to you?" I asked her, knowing that she was well educated enough that she could know what it meant, with her vast decks of vocabulary and synonyms and idioms and metaphors and all of the other linguistic shit she came up with.

She looked into thin air for a moment, as she always did whilst pondering something, before she shrugged, defeated. "No. Why? What does it mean?"

"I don't know either." I complained, making hand gestures that I always did when I got frustrated.

"Where did you hear it?" She then asked, taking my glass and putting it inside her bowl and sliding them to the edge of the table, where a woman in a red outfit silently took it and retreated to the kitchen door, which shocked me somewhat, as I had not noticed her presence until then.

"It is all part of this big mystery surrounding Elle Bishop." I sighed, moving my hands onto the table, clicking my knuckles, making my sister squirm.

"That is disgusting!" She exclaimed, to which I smiled, knowing she hated it. "And who is Elle Bishop?"

"I don't know! It is just a big mystery!" I announced, a little too loud, drawing the attention of Katniss, Gale and Peeta, the latter and former of which gave me pretty evil scowls, though Peeta's scowl looked more like he was straining for a fart.

"Well call Scooby doo and the gang and get them to sort it out for you, but first go and get your bag." She said in a condescending voice, reminding me so much of my mother, god I hoped she wouldn't turn into my mother.

"Yes mother." I sighed, walking away from her and back to those stupid metal stairs that I so hated. Would it have really cost so much to have made them marble?

Of course, my room was not empty, Cato, Finnick, Marvel, and Gloss, were all in it, Finnick laying on my bed, the other three on the sofa. They were all dressed, well I am not sure you could cast Finnick as being dressed, because his shirt was not done up and he looked pretty slutty, no shock there.

Gloss gave me a bit of an evil stare, Cato ignored me, and Marvel was too cuddled up to him to have been able to turn his head anyway. Finnick of course kept his eyes glued to me the whole time, did he have precognition or something? How the hell did he know I was coming back! Or did he just like my smell? Either way, he shouldn't have been on my bed, but I didn't want to embarrass myself by attempting to pull him off, and my bag was tucked down next to my nightstand anyway.

I wandered over to get it, and too my surprise noticed they were not on call of duty, but were watching… Power rangers? Well unless there was another program that involved five overly colour co-ordinated twenty year olds on a blue spaceship with a red robot and a mentioning of Quantrons… No, they were watching power rangers…

Of course taking my bag with Finnick there would have never been easy, and I could tell from his expression he was going to do something, what I would never know. As I approached he sat up and smiled at me, of course not a friendly smile, more of an, I-want-to-fuck-you, smile.

His hands moved out and held my hips, pretty slowly, and considering how he could be, I decided it would be easier to just let him do so.

"You're so thin…" He sort of whispered to himself, just staring at my pelvic area, before he gruffly pulled me down onto my bed, where he wrapped his arms tightly around me, to an extent that I struggled to breathe.

"W-what…" I gasped, squirming to try and get out of his grasp, to no avail, as Finnick was stronger than he looked, or maybe I was just very weak? Either way his tough embrace was never going to yield and I looked pretty much stuck until he decided to release me.

"Stop squirming, I just want a cuddle." Finnick chuckled, awkwardly arranging himself so that he and I were side by side on my bed, which, to my surprise, was clearly built so that two could sleep on it.

I had to admit it, if this had been anyone else it would have been an adorable sign of affection, to which I would never have been able to turn down. It was only because it was Finnick that I started to feel uncomfortable, because I had known him for a meagre two days, and he had already groped me, stared at my nether regions, insulted me and borrowed my shampoo. But, I couldn't really resist it, it was cute, and it did make my chest go all warm and fluttery, so I timidly wrapped my arms around his waist.

"Not so hard is it? Liking me?" He breathed into my ear, his hot breath making the hairs on my neck writhe in ecstasy. Luckily for me, my shorts were tight enough to conceal the effect he was having on me, but if he nudged it he would know, so I needed to get away from the hot embrace of his arms, let alone that my sister was waiting for me.

"Why is Cato watching power rangers?" I whispered into Finnick's ear, trying to make my voice sound as sexy and alluring as his seemed to be all of the time, though that may have been because he was Australian.

"The old ones are pretty awesome actually, I don't like the new shit that they crap up but the old stuff isn't so bad. Of course shit acting, and more plot holes than Swiss cheese, but kind of amusing to watch." Finnick returned, and I did silently agree with him. But then I was nostalgic, many a lonely night I would fetch a lone teddy from my cupboard to cuddle with, only to end up with every one of them in my bed come morning, and power rangers was part of my childhood, though I don't think I would spontaneously watch it, and I also doubted that Cato was nostalgic at all.

"You two having fun over there?" Marvel chimed, and I knew it was Marvel from the southern twang that inhabited his voice, I guessed he was from Georgia or maybe Texas.

"I'm just waiting for him to give up and make out with me." Finnick returned, before deciding to nibble on the tip of my nose, which, to my great annoyance, made me giggle. I didn't know how coy my giggle was until that moment, because it had to have been pretty nice to hear, as even Cato turned around, albeit only for a few moments, but he still pulled his eyes from the television for the first time since I had known him.

"Right okay Finnick, get of me now, I gotta get back to my sister." I excused myself, managing to use his distracted state to writhe free from his grasp, though he let me, because he could have latched back on and I would have been the fly in Finnick's web once again. Maybe that wasn't the best metaphor, I hated spiders.

"You're sister have fine legs." Gloss said, in his heavy accent, looking at me as if I was about to confirm it, no way was I. She was my sister! That was wrong in at least two ways.

I ignored Gloss, and propped my bag up on the bed, taking the timetable from my pocket and sliding it into the main body of the bag.

"When's your free?" Finnick questioned, but he already knew, I could tell, because he wouldn't have known to ask otherwise.

"Third." I stated simply, before I swung the bag onto my shoulder, and begun to move off, but not before Finnick shouted.

"Meet you in here!"

* * *

I groaned, at the sheer unfairness of the seating plan Bob had put us in. It felt odd, wrong even to be calling a teacher by their first name, and especially such an aged one. We had been put into a 'randomly assigned seating plan' in the room, which was of course, only random to the people who were not called Cato or Marvel. Who were sat opposite me on a table of four.

Next to me was a dark skinned girl called Monica, Monica Dawson actually. We had chatted whilst the rest of the class turned up, as she was there even before my sister and I. She was from New Orleans, and her family had been devastated by the hurricane that had blown through the city. Her parents and grandfather had all died in that storm. It was a rather awkward conversation starter, because then she asked me about my life, and saying, 'I am a rich English billionaire' just made her story seem all the worse, so I tried to avoid that side of it, instead focusing on my sister and I. Speaking of which, my sister was sat next to Cashmire, and they were engaging in some light chatter, but I stopped being able to eavesdrop when Cato and Marvel sat down.

They had just erupted into conversation, mainly mocking about Mr Bishop… Bob, and a few members of the class, one of which they addressed as 'twelve'. I noticed Monica was getting pretty steamed over the whole bullying theme, but before I could try and calm her down, the lesson began.

Bob was a boring teacher, and I ended up using my notebook to doodle in the margins, which was less subtle than most. Cato and Marvel were talking, loudly, and my sister was actually making origami cranes with Cashmire, at least they were getting along. But then, we had an experiment to do. And we had to work in fours. Our table groups. At least this could add some comedic element to the lesson.

"Immobilising enzymes." Monica said, reading out loud off of the hand out we had been given on the experiment. "Mix two centimetres cubed of lactase enzyme with eight centimetres cubed of sodium alginate solution." She continued, with a tone of slight confusion laced in her voice.

"I'm guessing that that is these two." I commented, taking the appropriate labelled bottles of substances and unscrewing the caps on them, before taking a syringe to the sodium alginate, whilst Monica drew up the second fluid.

"D'ya mind passing us the calcium chloride please?" Monica said, reading the next step on the sheet, before looking at Cato and Marvel, the former of which had a syringe full of water, which was promptly squirted into the crotch of the other boy.

"My skinnys!" Marvel gawked, jumping up in exclamation, as Cato announced that Marvel had wet himself.

Monica rolled her eyes and reached over to get the calcium chloride, as I mixed the alginate and the lactase in a separate beaker, before drawing up the mixture into yet another syringe. I then handed her the syringe and let her at the mixture to the chloride, one drop at a time, watching them form pearly white beads and sink to the bottom.

I noticed how perfectly she did it; it was pretty much exactly how Bob had shown us in the demonstration. Bob… I still wanted to call him Mr Bishop.

"Use a tea strainer… separate… chloride solution…" Monica mumbled, fetching a sieve like object and pouring the mixture into it, so that only the beige beads remained, which she then poured into a measuring cylinder, before looking at the sheet.

"Pour milk containing lactose sugar into the column… Milk? Where's the milk?" She mumbled again, glancing around.

I felt a little like a sues chief right now, but I guessed I could look for the milk, and I found it instantly, in Marvel's hands.

Cato was busy shouting something at someone, something offensive, as Marvel tipped the flask filled with milk into his crotch, making him jump and scream. My best guess is that it was cold.

"Cato came! Cato creamed himself!" Marvel yelled, with a wide grin, as Cato looked around, furious and red faced, before it softened into a goofy grin, and he looked at Marvel, his goofy expression quickly morphing into a smirk.

"What are you waiting for? All hands on deck sailor." Cato ordered the shorter boy, before grabbing the back Marvel's head and moving it roughly into the milk stained denim crotch of his trousers.

"I'm starting to question the division of labour here…" Monica complained, crossing her arms and pouting a little bit. Her ebony skin making the pose look so stereotypical it was a struggle not to laugh. "And we're out of milk." She went on to complain. "And how are we supposed to immobilize these enzymes without milk?"

"The enzymes are already immobilized… Just saying…" I meekly suggested, before the pout turned on me, and it took everything I had not to giggle at this ultimate stereotype that was displayed in front of me. Chemistry was going to be an amusing subject this year.

* * *

Chemistry went pretty quickly, for a two hour lesson, but then the comedians sat opposite me were pretty amusing. It was juvenile immaturities, but they were still hilarious. The water, Cato moving Marvel's chair back as he went to sit down, Marvel putting glue on Cato's chair, Cato unplugging Bob's laptop but funniest off all, playing a game in which they had to make orgasm sounds, and they had to go louder than the other. It is a miracle that the neighbouring classrooms didn't investigate, but then again, it was probably a common occurrence.

Even Monica started to enjoy herself, I mean, she was very outgoing once she started to speak, and I offered her to join us for lunch, to which she accepted. It turned out that my sister had also invited someone to join us. Cashmire.

We waited for Claire and West to join us which they did promptly, and then it was announced that Monica and Claire were actually roommates, which kind of kept Cashmire as the only outsider, which was a little awkward…

We decided to check out the dining hall, mainly because we hadn't seen it yet, and then partially because West was hungry, as was my sister. The hall was in the main complex of campus, attached to the large house that the teachers lived in, which Cashmire explained was dubbed 'The Capitol' by students, because it was where the campus was run from.

The dining hall was huge… And by huge I meant huge. It was like a football pitch! An English one though… I didn't know how big an American football pitch was. The majority of it was in a fairly open area where the canteen was also located, but then there were two raised areas, one almost full, and the other, empty, save for Gale and Katniss sitting at one of the tables..

"It's really busy…" Claire dumbly stated, a statement I couldn't help but roll my eyes at, because of course it was busy, it was lunch time.

"Let's go sit over there." Cashimre started, gesturing towards the rather crowded platform area, with a table that was almost empty, save for the ginger girl dubbed as 'Foxface' by the bullies, and Peeta, sat next to her, but by the looks of things they weren't talking.

"Or we could sit at an empty table, like a clean one?" My sister stated, and I was with her on this one a hundred present. And also Peeta didn't like me.

"Yeah I mean, that place is just totally empty, and clean, we can just sit in the corner, opposite the lovebirds…" I added, just to show where I stood.

Cashmire looked, and then her gaze dropped a little bit, and her feet became very interesting to her. "That is where the Careers eat…" She mumbled, which was met by five perplexed glances. What were the careers… Jobs? "The bullies, Cato's group." She added, which was then met with a collection of sighs of agreement and nods.

"Well then come on let's eat there. Cato's my roommate, I have leeway, and plus, I gave him some biscuits and helped him win a game of halo. And turned his alarm off for him." I announced proudly, as West, my sister, Monica and Cashmire all went to get some food, Claire and I moved to claim a table, we had a lot of choice.

We settled for a table near the edge, opposite corners to Gale and Katniss, and close to the door, where we spotted Johanna, and beckoned her over to join us. Where she did so, apprehensively, and sat next to Claire.

We chatted for a few minutes, before the others returned to us, with food, and West looked crushed that he couldn't actually sit next to Claire, so he sat the closest to her, next to Monica, my sister and Cashmire sitting on the next two chairs, leaving me, with an empty seat next to me. I felt lonely.

Chatter was maintained fruitfully across the table, apart from with me, as I had nobody to talk to, so I took my headphones out of my pocket and prepared to listen to some ABBA, just as the so called 'Careers' entered the room.

Well they were very loud, but the silence that they commanded was bolstering the noise levels they were creating. I noticed a couple of faces I had not seen before, a bunch of muscular dominating types with swaggers like they had mini trampolines on their feet. Jocks… I think that was what they were called. Of course the jocks either had skimpy girls with waists you could use as a tea stirrer, girls slightly bigger but with breasts that could cause concussion, or boys with light muscle dusting the visible parts of their bodies, all of which were wearing some form of tank top. And I think there was only one not blonde.

They moved to the centre of the little area we were on the borders of, and I kept my eyes on them, to see how they would react. One of the boys I didn't know glanced over, and his mouth opened to shout, but something changed his mind, and seconds later, the whole table were looking at us. I was sat side on, so I could subtly see, Cashmire and my sister had their backs to the group, and neither turned around, though that was for different reasons.

The large band continued to stare for some time, and from what I gathered, Finnick and Cato were sticking up for us, or maybe just me, had they even seen me? Maybe they were simply orchestrating some form of humiliation attempt on us.

Then Finnick turned around and blew a kiss at me.

Okay, they knew we were here. I smirked and slipped the bud of my headphones into my ear. The mamma mia soundtrack. Genius. I smiled and let myself get dragged into 'Does your mother know' which brought a smile to my features as my lips instinctively mouthed along to the words.

I phased out of the reality I was in, and soon enough I was utterly oblivious to what was going on around me, everything simply becoming a blur surrounded by music.

_You're so hot, teasing me,_

_So your blue but I can't take a change on a kid like you._

_It's something I couldn't do._

_There's that look, in your eyes,_

_I can read in your face that your feelings are driving you wild._

_Oh but boy you're only a child._

I felt warmth to my left, and suddenly pressure was on the side of my body, and something snaked around my back and rested on my hip, a hand. I didn't need to look, I could smell his specific scent, his individual cologne that he wore, which was pungent, and rather overpowering, not to mention there was but one in the whole school that would do this to me. Finnick Odair.

I tilted my head to glance up, and sure enough, there he was, his perfect skin, his beautiful complexion. I could have snuggled up with him forever in all honesty, but the little fact that I knew he was a man slut kept me from him, which was in some ways benevolent, because we could both end up getting hurt, me emotionally, him physically.

He was talking, and I couldn't hear what was being said, my music was too loud, but suddenly, all eyes were on me, and I decided that I needed to catch myself up.

"What's going on?" I asked softly, pulling the earphones out of my ears and tucking them into the top of my t-shirt, waiting to be filled in.

"This dude says you wanted to fuck him in your room at lunch, but you never turned up?" West stated, which was probably his second sentence to me, and I guessed he had said it as he was the only other boy, bar the boy in question.

"No, Finnick just wants me." I returned nonchalantly, before giving the boy in question a hard poke on the cheek.

"Don't lie babe, I know you want me… Everybody does…" He breathed down onto my neck, making the hairs on it tingle, sending my body into ecstasy once more. I hated how he could make me squirm, it was too easy for him. I guess being a total virgin made me easy to tease, did he know I was a total virgin? I hoped not…

"Go away." I returned, trying to sound nonchalant yet again, but my voice came out slightly husky. That was due to the gentle stroking of his finger up and down my hip. I hoped he would leave…

"See you later then." He breathed again, driving my body into one final surge of pleasure, before he retreated from me, which made me almost moan from the loss of contact.

I cleared things up with the others, Cashmire and Johanna backed be up on how Finnick was most likely lying, and then comforted me about having Cato as my roommate, but I was only half listening.

In reality I was craving a quick glance over to see Finnick, but I knew I couldn't, it would show him that I kind of liked him, which I didn't want to get out there, but it was hard to stop myself from doing so. All it was was a tiny crane of my neck, just to glance, but he saw it. He was looking right back.

* * *

**Ohhh things are heating up. ;)**

**Now, one thing to note, i do take reviews into consideration. **

**If someone puts in a review that they really want to see some interaction with Marvel. I try and write some interaction with him in the next chapter i write. Usually not the next one, but the one after xD**

**So i hope you enjoyed it. And please leave a review xD :D**


	7. Exposed

**I do still want the reviews y'know xD**

**So if it is not too much trouble just drop your opinions, or what you want to happen next (which characters you want to see more of and learn more about ect.)**

**Now, to my most faithful reviewers, i have a subtle reference to the amazing YoungArtist77's Story 'Where the sun sets early' **

**(If you haven't read it then you must do so, it is the best thing i have like ever read ever!)**

**And there is also a reference to the amazing (and Handsome) AllenCampbell in my story.**

**subtle because in both cases it is literally one word that links the stories together xD**

**And just to say- No Cato is not really chubby xD**

**On with the show/story thing-**

**(I write the location in the title because some chapters they may be elsewhere)**

* * *

**Exposed**

**Panem School for the gifted and talented, Nebraska, USA **

Lunch had lasted a little too long, my friends not wanting to leave the canteen for whatever reason. The canteen itself was almost like some form of animal trap, people continually entered it, but nobody seemed to leave. However the so called Careers seemed to provide a protective bubble around this seating area, some form of intimidating presence that they radiated. Only one other pair came to sit here, and they were promptly banished by mocking calls and shouts from the table of intimidation.

To bide my time, I kept stealing soft glances over at Finnick, who I noticed was looking at me each time. His perfect sea green eyes and bronzed features making my heart flutter a little bit each time we broke eye contact. He was appealing to me more and more, at first he was simply an annoying slut, but now, two days later, he was actually appealing to me… I began to stop seeing why I didn't want to kiss him, other than the obvious fact that my parents were old fashioned and still couldn't comprehend sex before wedlock, my sister was almost as bad.

I knew that the first time for guys was supposed to be painful, it was fairly obvious that it would be, but it also held something of a deeper intimacy and passion than it would have done if it was a pain free event. Even if all Finnick wanted was a fuck buddy, I couldn't help but feel slightly drawn to the way the bigger careers fawned over their lither counterparts, stroking their hair, holding them tightly, it all just had a big appeal to it. An intense appeal.

My second, and last, period of the day was food technology and luckily, the room was next to the canteen. Though that did mean we would need to wait in the stench of the food that had been cooked up, which was lovely if you were hungry, but not if you weren't. The next good point was that Finnick didn't have this lesson, nor did Cato. Marvel did, Gloss did, the girl with the dagger eyed stare did. And Claire, who I stood with.

The knowledge that I wouldn't be able to witness of the Marvel/Cato double act was disappointing, and I made a bet with myself that Gloss and the dagger eyed girl would not be quite as fun. In fact they both looked like they would be the last people to make a joke, they looked to sinister to be funny, but then again, so did clowns without their make up on. But I suppose clowns weren't that funny anyway, unless you threw crockery at their heads.

We were outside the classroom for a fairly long duration, uncomfortably watching the cleaners tidy up the mess in the room, most of which was in the area that the careers sat in. It looked very much like they had dropped more food than they had eaten, they were definitely slobs to say the least. Yet another reflection on the careers made me wonder why Cashmire called them such. Because quite frankly, they didn't seem likely to get jobs anywhere outside of the red light district or the mafia.

After almost half an hour of waiting for the teacher to arrive, she finally did. And I realised why she had taken so long. She was a frail old thing, thin and scrawny like a malnourished chicken, with platinum white hair that coiled down past her neck like strands of platinum twine, pale skin that only heightened the brown specks of age detail on her face and hands, and wrinkles. Lots of wrinkles that sat like canyons in her face. She was old. Furthermore she was walking with a Zimmer frame, and she was walking ridiculously slow.

When she finally reached the room, she beckoned for us to enter and we did, walking along the blue flooring that sat comfortably against benches and walls of white. The desks were arranged in pairs apart from one at the very front of the room, which was arranged in a three, where Claire and I made a Beeline too, much to my disgust, I didn't like people being behind me.

"Good afternoon class." The woman croaked, pulling a chair out from under a desk on a raised podium that stood at the very front of the room. "I am Mrs Linderman. But you can call me Mags if you would prefer. I do not mind." She went on, and it was soon relatively clear that the school was leinient when It came to formality, as all the teachers I had met so far, other than Mr Beetee or Miss Coolidge, had given us their first name.

The elderly woman, who I guessed to be about eighty at the very least, rambled on about the lesson and her expectations of us in it, before she instructed us to place our bags on the rack at the back of the classroom, and get an apron. The aprons in question were an awful colour, a sickly bright red in a slippery material that made me cringe. Of course, I couldn't actually reach behind me to tie it, so I asked Claire to do it for me, which she did, then asked me to do the same, which I attempted, though I highly doubted that it would hold for very long.

We had then been given instruction to use the ingredients in our fridge and cupboards to create a meal, it felt like I had been thrust into an episode of MasterChef. And the look I sent Claire told her my feelings, horror. I could barely butter bread without having some form of trauma. My culinary skills were feeble, if existent at all.

We had a look in the fridge to do what Claire called a 'Stock check' and she removed some of the items from it, I guessed that they were the ones she was going to use. But before we could finishe, something happened at the back of the classroom and Mrs Mags started to shout. I don't know if Mrs Mags was the best thing to be calling her.

"You three! Two to a desk! One of you get down to the front!" The woman shouted, pointing furiously to the back of the classroom, getting slightly red faced. Her look alone was enough to put someone off as it were.

There were some muffled shouting at the back of the classroom, but I played little attention to it, because I was still looking at the cluster of ingredients that Claire had produced from the fridge, wondering what on earth we would be making with what she produced. Eggs, milk, bacon, cheese, and then some items she had taken from the cupboards, pasta, salt, pepper and a clove of garlic.

I heard a plunk from next to me, followed by a thump. Looking over to the other space, I saw a mop of dirty blonde hair, and I instantly knew who it belonged to. Marvel. I glanced at him, slumped down on the floor with his head in his hands, then over at the back of the room, with Clove and Gloss laughing about something. I felt my eyes widen slightly at the sight of the two of them laughing. Then I felt a pang of emotion, he had obviously been voted off of the back table. I immediately felt sorry for him, and wondered what Cato would have done in this situation, before I realised that I wasn't Cato, and that I could handle things how I wished.

I slowly sunk down to his level, making sure that I didn't alarm him, and gently put my hand on his shoulder, before I softly spoke to him. "Are you okay?" I whispered, not wanting to alarm him, and also not wanting other people to know he was upset.

He looked at me with his beautiful blue eyes, before he nodded a little bit, though it was obvious that he was upset. I thought about how Cato would have acted in this situation, before again, I decided to just do what I thought was good and gently brushed the hair out of his eyes, only for it to flop back down again, which made me pout in annoyance. It brought a watery smile from the boy though, who gently clambered up to his feet, and looked over at Claire, before he walked up to the front desk and started talking to Mrs Mags.

"What are we cooking?" I then asked Claire, turning to the girl, who was using a knife way to big and sharp, to cut the bacon into little squares.

She turned her head up towards me and started to explain the meal. "We're gonna have spaghetti carbonara. I used to cook it at home."

I saw the accident about to happen. She was looking at me, and still trying to cut the bacon, and her hand moved a little too far forward. The blade of the knife moved down in a quick motion, then imbedded itself in her fingers. Crimson splattered the knife and the chopping board as the four of her fingers were severed with a single blow of the knife blade.

It became a gory piece of art, four disembodied fingers leaking a darker shade of red onto the crimson plastic chopping board that was already dusted with the light pink of the raw bacon. Had it indeed been on a canvas, I could have appreciated it a lot more, but being a real life image, was far too vivid for me to appreciate. Not to mention the fact that Claire had just cut off four of her fingers.

I gagged at the sight of her fingers being cut from her body, and that was the only reason she looked down at them. Her eyes widened slightly, but they weren't rigged with the pain that they should have been. Her muscles didn't seize up like they should have. She didn't shudder. She didn't scream. She didn't faint. She didn't feel the pain from cutting off her own fingers.

"Shit!" She cursed, snatching her hand back from the board and holding it behind her back for a moment, knocking a severed digit to the floor, leaving a little blood splat. That was too much for me.

I went down to the floor and retched, making as little noise as possible, I didn't want someone to think I was totally frightened of blood. It was only partially the blood, I was disturbed by the lack of pain she felt from cutting off her fingers.

"Whoa Zeph! Are you okay?" Claire exclaimed out of the blue a few moments later, crouching down with the speed of a cheetah and putting her hand on my knee, a hand that should have been fingerless, but was now fine. My eyes widened as I looked at it, knowing that I had just witnessed her cut off four of her fingers.  
"Y-you cut off your fingers…" I sputtered, looking at the hand in shock and awe.

"No I didn't… I'm fine?" She pepped in reply. "Have you been drinking or something?" She went on to chuckle, which had me doubting myself, before I noticed something, something proving I was right.

"You didn't?" I questioned, moving my hand out to take the finger that had fallen on the floor, picking it up with a high amount of disgust, and only touching it at the fingertip and nail, holding it up to her. "Then where did this come from?"

She looked at it, and snatched it out of my hand in a heartbeat. "You didn't see this." She then spat venomously, which made me smile a little bit, before I realised something.

It hit me like a train. "You have an ability! A power!" I said, probably too loud, but with the fans that were blowing and the sound of chopping, tearing, splashing, boiling and frying it was drowned out.

"You didn't see it!" She then spurted again, looking at me with hatred, before standing up and walking to the bin to drop the finger, then washing her hands.

"Whoa whoa calm down, I won't tell." I informed her, climbing to my feet and taking a few steps in her direction, so I was behind her, facing the window above the sink. Then I focussed. It was getting easier to do now, use my power, change the weather. That tingling and warmth that ghosted around my body, which began to remind me a little of the buzz that I received from drinking alcohol, descended through my nervous system and ricocheted through my limbs and organs.

The sky that was cloudless and bright darkened to a gloomy sheet that was dragged over the school, before it started to rain heavily. The transition from light to dark was incredible, making the sports class on the far field begin heading towards the changing rooms. The rain hit the windows hard and fast, hitting it with merciless pelts of water, it was rain that was almost sleet, but not quite as solid as its counterpart, but equally as painful to get hit by.

I felt Claire go slightly rigid and she span around to face me, and with our faces centimetres apart, she looked at me with eyes filled with awe, her mouth slightly agape.

"Did you do that?" She breathed, looking at me with the two spheres of the purest blue, which made me smile a little bit, it was better than the usual look my sister would give me, much better.

"Yes… I think it runs in my family, my sister can…" I began, before I was cut short by someone dangerously close to us.

"Hey, what are we cooking then?" A southern accent asked, spinning us both around to Marvel, who was reading the back of a packet of pasta.

"Carbonara." Claire said, before shooting me a look and walking over to the boy.

"What runs in your family Zeph? And what can your sister do?" Marvel then asked, turning towards me and putting the pasta down before he giggled a little. "You're hair has gone all static."

The godforsaken nickname was actually beginning to grow on me, though that was probably because everyone was using it. Then I glanced into the reflective surface on the bottom of one of the saucepans Claire had got out, and almost screamed in shock. Indeed my hair was static, but why this had occurred, I had absolutely no idea.

Then I remembered Marvel had asked me a question, and this made me panic, because I needed to think under pressure, which was something I could not do. "I… My err… Culinary skills runs in my family…" I muttered, moving a hand up to try and sort out my hair. "And my sister… Can… Not cook either…" I continued, before I felt embarrassed, and I brought Claire back into the conversation. "Can we not put lots of cheese in it? I'm not a lover of cheese." I said quickly, which was all I imputed in the entirety of the cooking lesson, which was Claire lecturing Marvel and I about how to do it, anything we said receiving a 'shush' or 'no'.

I noticed Claire did not use the bacon which had blood on, which was a good call. I didn't want to eat her blood any more than she did, probably less so. She was the cook of the three of us, any attempt at help Marvel or I gave was silenced and shot down, eventually we gave up and decided to play rock, paper, scissors.

I won a game, he won a game, he won a game, I won a game. Then Claire started to moan at us so we stopped, standing awkwardly as Claire finished with the meal, putting it into a bowl, before turning to the two of us, making us freeze with a rabbits-in-headlights look plastered across our faces.

"What do we do now?" She asked us, in a less than polite tone, before putting her hands on her hips. I looked at Marvel, who looked at the floor.

"I sat next to Finnick last year, we didn't do anything." He muttered, before Claire sighed, exasperated, storming off to speak to Mrs Linderman.

"She is scary…" I muttered, turning to Marvel, who simply sighed, not lifting his gaze up from the floor.

"You think she is bad, you should see Clove… Or Gloss" He muttered, subtly gesturing to the back, where the black haired girl was ranting something at Gloss, I guessed she was Clove.

"You think she is bad you should see my sister on her period…"

"What?" Marvel turned to me, with a small smile on his face, he had a pretty smile, it suited him.

"Shit flies, then hits the fan." I returned, with a small giggle.

"Eww!" Was his response, grimacing slightly and shuffling back.

"What? No not literally, as in the expression… 'The shit has hit the fan'?" I defended, looking at him with slight smile. His vacant expression told me he hadn't heard of it, so I explained it to him. "It means something gets blown out of proportion. Like if you threw shit into an electric fan it would just spray out everywhere."

He started to giggle, before Claire returned, and told us that we could leave, because she didn't have any other work for us to do. So indeed, that is what we did.

* * *

The three of us walked together back to the district one dorm, well we ran, it would look weird me making the rain stop so quickly, then Claire went to her dormitory. Marvel revealed that he too had a free period next, and so I invited him into the room with me, and he obliged, though he was hesitant. We sat a little awkwardly for a while, not having known much about each other, before I made us some tea, and we both had a mug.

"Thank you." He smiled, as I handed him the mug, which had a rather lovely picture of Pac-Man on it, and he took a sip out of the mug before exclaiming it was way too hot.

"Yeah I only just poured it silly." I returned, smiling at his misfortune, which was something I would not usually do. It wasn't just the way he hurt himself, just how his mannerisms were once he had done so.

He pouted cutely at me, and I pouted right back, making us both laugh with enthusiasm. Marvel was actually a good chat, when he wasn't nuzzling Cato, he was pretty outgoing. We discussed a fair few topics, like my house, his roommate, which was incidentally Gloss, and his relationship with Cato, the last two him not going into much detail about.

It turned out; he was a pretty huge clutz. I told him to sit properly on the sofa if he was going to keep putting his mug on the glass coffee table in the centre of the room, but he insisted on sitting with his knees underneath him. When he reached over to get his mug for the fifth time, reaching over to the coffee table where he had set it down, he slipped. He had just grasped the mug too, and it spilt all over his white top, with some form of Abercrombie and Fitch embellishment on the front.

He didn't scream in pain, so I guessed that it wasn't hot, in fact he looked at me and pouted, and then we were both sent into hysterics. We laughed over the little accident for almost five complete minutes, occasionally broken by an attempt at speech that ended quickly with giggles. My face was streaming with tears and his wasn't much better.

Eventually we calmed down though I still chuckled as I looked down at the brown stained t-shirt he was in, before it occurred to me that the shirt was wet and I went over to my wardrobe to get out another for him. It was a fairly simple one that I chose, it was incidentally an Abercrombie and Fitch item that I had bought once, a top that cost about sixty four pounds. I only bought it because the store clerk was looking at me with that 'don't-look-at-it-because-you-can't-afford-it' look that they gave people. It was long sleeved and dark blue, and a little too big for me, I plucked it out. It would look great with his eyes.

I wandered back to him, and he looked at the shirt with curiosity, before I spoke.

"Well you can't wear that now; it's wet, and stained, put this on." I said, almost forcing the top into his hands, which opened a little to grasp it.

"I-I…" He spluttered, before he shyly looked at the floor, he did appear to like looking at the floor. "Can you turn around please?" He continued, with the same demure tone that he usually used.

I mumbled a sure, and turned around, only to realise that I was looking into a mirror. I chuckled and was about to tell him, when he took the dirty top off, and I looked at his back, which was all I could see in the reflection, in utter horror.

"Marvel what happened!" I near screamed, making him jump around and look at me angrily, though his face softened when he saw I had seen him in the mirror, before I swung around and looked at his front, which had the exact same problem with it. Bruises.

There were bruises all over his body, some green, some purple, some black, some yellow. He also had light thin cuts dusting across his pale skin, with some long thin scars across his belly. The bruises all seemed to interlink and it was another piece of gruesome art, the second I had seen that day.

"I had a football game." He muttered quickly, after simply staring at me for a little while, his face going a light shade of red and his eyes becoming bloodshot fairly quickly, which told me we was probably about to cry.

"No you didn't." I returned, striding up to him and gently taking a hold of his shoulders so that he couldn't turn away from me. "A game of American football could bruise you, but they wouldn't be so varied in colour. And those scratches were done with a knife." I told him, as he hung his head in shame.

"I self har…" He began, biting his bottom lip to try and stop himself from crying, before I prudently interrupted him.

"Bullshit. Someone did this to you." I told him, gently sliding my hand softly down his arm until it rested on his, which a gave a small squeeze before he snatched it away quickly, before pulling my top over his head.

"Listen. Please drop it. You won't understand, please just leave it… I'm okay, it isn't as bad as it looks, please." He said, timidly, whimpering one final time before I noticed a tear fall down his cheek. Guilt wasn't an emotion I was used to, but then, I hadn't really met that many people who I actually liked, but this boy was crying, because of me.

I gently put my arms around his shoulders and held him tight, though he was an inch or two taller than me, going up on my tiptoes to whisper in his ear. "I'm sorry. It isn't my place to say anything. But I am here to talk to if you need to Marvel. Believe it or not I am actually your friend." I whispered softly, before he wrapped his own arms around my chest and pulled me closer to him, sobbing against the side of my neck.

"I-it was G-gloss…" He mumbled holding me tighter as he said the name of the boy. "He hurts me…" He whispered next, which nearly broke my heart there and then. The boy was terrified, that took no genius to work out. How tightly he was holding me, how his hands were gripped onto my top so hard the nails were probably going through it and into my skin.

"Does Cato know?" I asked softly, trying to provide comfort but also trying to sate my curiosity at the same time. I gently moved one of my hands up and onto his head, stroking his blonde locks with what I hoped was a comforting affection.

"Yeah but… He can't d-do nothin'…" The boy whimpered again, which really peaked my curiosity with the obvious question.

"Why not?" I then asked, threading my fingers through his hair and gently rubbing his back in a manner that I again hoped held comfort, but what did I know.

"Gloss is the leader of the Careers… Cato can't say nothin' to him…" Marvel muttered, giving a hearty sniff that told me I probably had his snot on my neck, but I tried to get over that for now, as he moved slightly and placed his forehead against mine, so that I was slightly looking up at him. "I've never… Had a friend like you before…" He muttered, lightening his grip and pulling me in to what I only assumed could be a cuddle.

"Well maybe that is because you are always too busy nuzzling Cato to be social." I joked, making him giggle a little bit as we looked into each other's eyes, both with our mouths pursed into slight smiles.

Whatever was coming next was interrupted by the sound of a camera shutter going off, which swung us both around to face a smirking Finnick, with a blackberry's camera pointed right at us.

"Sorry for disturbing you two lovebirds, but I just thought I should get some form of blackmail material against you. I could show this to Cato, or Gloss maybe, it looks like you are about to engage in a thorough snogging of each other's faces." The sea eyed slut smirked, tilting his head to the side whilst keeping the blackberry in his hands.

"Finnick you sick bastard!" I shouted, anger dawning upon the fact that this boy was preparing to blackmail Marvel against someone who was beating him.

"Finnick I will do anything and everything you want to get you to delete that picture." Marvel spluttered at a similar time, which made me raise my eyebrows at the different levels of tact we had taken, his idea being much better.

"Relax princess don't get your Calvin Klein's in a twist." He directed at me, gesturing at my crotch, which did indeed tell me he had been looking at me put my boxers on in the shower this morning. " And Marvy' darlin'" He directed at the other boy, imitating his Texan drawl pretty well considering he was Australian. "This 'aint nothin' you can do. All I want is a little bit o' sugar from Captain Briton here." He dissolved back into his natural accent, looking at me with a predatory look in his eyes.

My eyes widened, and I looked at Finnick, before looking at Marvel, who was looking at me, then back to Finnick, who had just taken his top off, then back to Marvel, who had his hands in a 'please' gesture, before I looked back to Finnick.

I sighed, and nodded softly, before timidly walking over to Finnick, who gently hugged me in his strong arms…

"Take your shirt off." He whispered to me, and I could do nothing to say no. After seeing Marvel's bruises, I knew I couldn't let the boy down.

I took the black top from my thin figure and dropped it on the floor. Normally I would have folded it up neatly, but I couldn't do it, this moment was too much for rationality. Finnick pulled me into his embrace, and it felt ten times more amazing than it had in the shower, though I tried not to admit that to myself, still trying to tell myself he was a scumbag.

He moved a caring, soft hand to my chin, and pushed it up, so I was looking into his eyes. I couldn't deny it anymore, he was beautiful. He made me weak at the knees, he made my heart flutter. Why had I been denying him for so long? He may be a blackmailing slut and a total perverted scumbag, but he was gorgeous, and in some twisted way this moment was actually almost sweet.

He leant in towards me, tilting his head to the side, as I did the same, to the opposite side. We were going to kiss. It was the ultimate heat. Our groins pressed together, both of us hard, from what I could feel anyway. But I couldn't think about anything other than the kiss that was imminent, even with the pressure building inside of my groin that was nearly unbearable.

Then he kissed me.

* * *

"Here's the phone sugarpuff." Finnick giggled, tossing the phone towards Marvel, who caught it deftly, then he put his now free hand on mine, and intertwined our fingers. I would have struggled, but I was still feeling a little dizzy from the moment we had just shared, which had my knees so weak I was glad for the Australian's support as I attempted to pull my shirt back on.

"Annie… Anary… Cato… Clove… Finch… Finnick… Glimmer… Finnick why do you have pictures of Foxface on your phone?" Marvel called out, giggling slightly at the name he had just discovered on the phone. Finnicks hand let go of mine in shock and suddenly my legs became working again, vaulting me over the sofa and running me up next to Marvel in an instant.

The phone had folders, each with the name of someone from the school on. I didn't know who Anary or Glimmer was but Finch was apparently the name of the o so bullied Foxface girl. "Well click on it." I giggled to Marvel, who did so, before both of us fell into silence, staring at the picture displayed before us.

"You two! Don't look at it." Finnick said, lunging at us and knocking the phone from Marvels hand… But it was too late for that. The damage and emotional scarring had been done.

"I am so glad I am gay."

"You guys call her Foxface? You should call her Foxcrotch… I mean I'm hardly an expert on vagina's, but I've seen horses with less hair than that…"

Marvel and I looked at each other, before we were overcome by hysterical giggles, which totally drowned out Finnick's shallow attempts to make an excuse about having pictures of Finch on his phone.

Once we had settled down a little, I asked if we could watch a DVD, Finnick and Marvel agreed. I went up to root through my DVD collection, in a little draw under my bed, wanting to choose something I liked, that they hadn't seen yet.

I eventually settled on 'Atonement' because, even though I was sceptical when my sister practically forced me to watch it, I had enjoyed it. It was an awfully sad film, had the couple been two boys I would have balled my eyes out, but being a straight couple didn't have such an effect on me, but I was still whimpering for a while afterwards. My sister laughed at me, but only because she was such an emotional hard arse. She didn't even cry at titanic.

We put it on, and sat through it, and by the end, I noticed Finnick was scrunching his legs up to his chest in an unnecessarily hard way, and Marvel was actually sobbing on my shoulder, he and I sharing a sofa, I didn't trust myself with finnick. It was an awfully sad Movie. By the time the credits were rolling Marvel was in hysterics, and of course, that was when Cato chose to lollop in.

"What's up?" He chirped, throwing his bag on the floor and then l wandering around the sofa, before noticing Marvels tears. "What the fuck! What did you guys do to Marv?!"

"Atonement…" Marvel sniffled, before burying his face in Cato's top, which made me feel a little bit like the torch that nobody used unless the power was out, Cato being the power.

"Yeah I'll fucking give them their atonement!" Cato spat, going red faced, glaring at Finnick then I.

In response, I simply held up the DVD case for Cato to see, before I commented. "That isn't an incorrect word use, we atone for our actions, you don't atone us."

He mumbled something, before he began affectionately stroking Marvels hair exactly like I had done to the boy, which told me I was better at comforting than I had thought. We sat in relative silence as the credits rolled, but eventually, Finnick piped up.

"You guys wanna go do something tonight?"

Cato looked at him blankly, before speaking. "We can't, Monday night curfew." Was his response, which made Finnick sigh, before flopping down on the floor of the room which made me giggle.

"Can we do anything in here?" Finnick turned to ask the grey eyed boy, who shook his head in an instant.

"Nah, internet's gone shitty, must be the rain." He moaned, which made me blush slightly, before looking at the window, cursing silently when I saw the curtains drawn.

"F M L. I need something to do. Something fun." Finnick moaned again, picking at the seam of the sofa as if that would suddenly provide enlightenment of how not to be bored.

"Why don't you build a pillow fort or something?" I sarcastically commented, shuffling up on the sofa as Cato placed himself between Marvel and myself.

"Yes!" He exclaimed, standing up with a huge smile on his face. "We need to build a pillow fort!" A few chuckles came from the left of me and I just looked at Finnick dumbly. Was he really that immature?

"Come on! Marv you get your duvet and pillows and I'll go get mine! Then we'll build a huge fort." Finnick exclaimed, jumping up in glee and wandering over to the doorway, taking Marvels arm in the process, which made Cato's face sink. I thought Cato was the only one who got to call him that?

The other two boys shot out of the room and Cato and I were left fairly up in the air. We were actually going to build a pillow fort.

"Well before we can, we need to y'know, clear the area. Basically you need to put your suitcases somewhere else." I told Cato, using the situation to my advantage. He really needed to tidy it up, it looked like a suitcase bomb had gone off. I cringed at the thought of what it would look like after Finnick built his supposed fort, how could I have suggested this to him?

"Fine." Cato sighed, standing up with a yawn. "I was gonna do it today anyway." He muttered, walking over to his suitcase and simply slinging it into the wardrobe, in the space where his clothes should have been hanging.

I pouted at Cato after he had finished and finally managed to shut the door to the wardrobe, to which he stuck his tongue out playfully. He flopped back down on the sofa, before something clearly caught his eye, and he reached down to pick it up.

"This is Marvel's shirt?" He asked, though he already knew, whilst turning his eyes on me, clearly looking for an explanation.

"He spilt tea down it, so I offered him one of mine." I told him, which was the total truth, though I was not planning on telling him what I saw when he took it off.

"Awesome. Would have fit him better than mine anyway." He mumbled, cracking his neck loudly as the door opened again, and Finnick threw a mountain of duvets and pillows into the room.

"I took Peeta's as well. He won't mind." Finnick scoffed, picking them up again and throwing them deeper into the room, as Marvel appeared in the doorway, carrying a smaller bundle with him.

Finnick set to work, mercilessly stripping my bed, and then Cato's before he tried rigging various arrangements in between the two beds, moving Cato's a little closer to mine after failed attempts at getting the duvets to reach between the two.

It was amusing to watch Finnick struggle to rig some form of tent like structure between the two beds. How whenever he went to pull the duvet taught, it would simply slide out from underneath the other mattress, which made the three of us spectating the event giggle. It eventually occurred to Finnick to draft us other three boys in to help the creation of the 'fort' and soon we had something that could almost be cast as working. Peeta's and Finnick's duvets were draped across the space between the two beds, being high, so there was enough space between them to comfortably fit four boys. Fitting more would have been a little snug, but I didn't expect anyone else was coming, so I tried not to comment.

I guess it was clear we were all at least bi. Well I had damning evidence against Finnick and Marvel had said it outright, I didn't know about Cato so much, but the way he acted with Marvel looked pretty affectionate. They were more than just friends.

We had Marvel's duvet fashioned as a form of cover over the entrance to the 'den' and that was held in place by a clothes pegs, though where they were found I did not know. We had needed to take the inside out of that Duvet however, because otherwise the whole structure fell down, as we noticed, twice.

Cato and Marvel then went to fetch Finnick's mattress, and then Marvels, I managed to dissuade them from taking Peeta's, I made a mental note to get a duvet for him to use tonight, because It was going to be cold, I had decided that much. Soon the little 'den' was snug. We had eight pillows between four boys, and we only needed three, so one pair was thrown out, Finnick's I think. We had the mattresses placed next to eachother lengthways so it was like a square, and when laying inside our torsos where all on one mattress, our lower halves on the other one. It was a benefit of having such big mattresses and duvets. Good for building forts with.

Then we got in it, Finnick on the side closest to my bed, Cato closest to his. Marvel and I ended up in the middle, being the thinnest of the four of us, where Cato pulled Marvel into his arms, and Finnick tried to do the same to me, though I sent a kick into his shin that promptly told him to back off. Though of Course, it was Finnick. He whispered a quick 'kinky' at me, to which one of the other boys giggled, I guessed Marvel, Cato wasn't much of a giggler.

I didn't fully understand why we were laying in our makeshift bed at seven in the evening, with none of us having eaten, but we were, until someone knocked at the door. All of us groaned and made some form of excuse that they couldn't get up, so Finnick did, why, was a mystery, he didn't have to, although it could have been him non-verbally trying to convince us not to talk about Foxcrotch.

I heard some muffled noises, talking but far enough away that I couldn't hear it, before footsteps indicated that whoever it was was coming to the den with Finnick. So much for our secret den. It was probably Gloss and someone, maybe Gale.

"I shouldn't be surprised that you are lying in a…" My sister started as the front cover was drawn back, peering inside, to which I laughed. "What is this thing?"

"It's a den." Cato replied, stretching out somewhere to my left, which was met by chuckles from my sister, and another voice, which was accompanied by another face peering into the room.

"So you work outside of lessons, but piss around in them?" A southern accent asked, which was unmistakably Monica, she was the only one who would be still thinking about _that_.

"You two going in or what?" Finnick asked from behind them, which was met by some noises from the girls, before the two off them sort of flopped in, I think Finnick pushed them.

I Suddenly had my sister on one side of me, and scooted up a bit more to my left to make room for the newcomers, though I didn't get very far before I hit Marvel. Four was comfortable. Six was snug, to say the least.

I was facing Marvel, and I felt a thank you being breathed into my ear, and I knew what it was about, so I eased my phone out of my pocket and tapped the keys accordingly to create a message, though I didn't send it. I passed it to him.

_You owe me big time!_

I heard the sounds of keys being hit on the other side, and I guessed he was writing back, so I adjusted myself to get more comfortable.

"That's my breast!" Monica exclaimed, and I struggled so hard not to laugh, Finnick was really a slut.

I felt something hard and cold press into my face, and I turned, where I saw my phone, and took it from Marvel's grasp.

_I'll do anything, you stuck your neck out for me, Finn' is morally grey at best. It was a surprise he didn't tell you to let him shag you. Name it, and I'll make sure I do it for you. Thank you. X_

I had anything I wanted. Right there I could have asked him anything. I trusted him not to lie, he would definitely not lie to me after what I did to him, I hoped. I thought of something much craftier than he was likely to be expecting, and typed it down, before passing it to him.

_Tell me EVERYTHING you know about Elle Bishop._

* * *

_The room was too big for the amount of people who were inside it, Cinna, Mr Beetee, Lady Coin and a blonde. The blonde girl, in a cerulean blue cardigan stepped forward, passing a red file to Lady Coin, who took it and read it eagerly. _

"_So only two have been confirmed, and one unconfirmed. This is not what I had wanted. Did I not express the urgency of this enough?" She hissed at the blonde, who didn't back off in the slightest. She was undaunted._

"_It is even worse than that. We can't use Xiaoyu, nobody wants Omnilingualism." The blonde said, moving her hand up to adjust her hair even though it was perfect._

"_Omnilingualism is a useful ability…" Mr Beetee began, before being silenced._

"_If you'd given me that one I would have been pissed." The blonde snapped, turning on him, before looking back to the headmistress. "Sampson has impenetrable skin… Which, although undoubtedly less of a skill then weather control is, we have not identified who has that power, they are subtle. However impenetrable skin would be a great prize for the next on the list. I think it is Viktor…"_

"_Miss Bishop you will hold your tongue." Lady Coin snapped, throwing the file down onto the desk. "Who the recipients are is my decision. But, it seems that Sampson is the obvious target. Beetee ready the lab. And Cinna, make sure he doesn't struggle. The last thing I want is a struggle."_

* * *

**:O**_  
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**Right so- leave a review or a request, or both- Preferably not neither *Pouts***

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**Okay xxx See ya soon!**


	8. Dying of the Light

******Hey guys- **

**Appologies for the long update- we have had a heatwave over here and i cant concentrate in the heat :(**

**Secondly i appoligise if it is a bad chapter- but i have been so nervous the last few days that i am like stressing.**

**I get my exam results tomorrow- Source of the stress. **

**:(**

**Anyway i hope you like it, even though i don't-**

**Review?**

* * *

**Dying of the Light**

**Panem School for the gifted and talented, Nebraska, USA**

I sighed softly, and I felt my legs stretch out, my left hand moving up to push my sweaty fringe out of my eyes with a deep laziness that only came from one thing, an early morning. The fact that I was sweating buckets indicated to me that I was very hot, the reason behind that catching my attention immediately. I had Finnick pressed up against me, his bare chest pushed up against mine, his perky nipples pushing softly against my delicate bronze shoulder blades that sat elegantly under my skin.

I had a heavier weight than usual on my legs and upon looking down, I noticed in the dimness of the room that his right leg was draped over my legs, effectively pinning my body against him under the duvet. Then it hit me that Finnick should not have been in my bed, but the gentle snoring from behind me told me that there was someone else in the room, a lot closer than Cato's bed was.

Then my memories flooded back to me. Finnick, Marvel, Cato and I had spent the night in the so called 'den' we had constructed together the day prior. After my sister and Monica had drafted me down to eat supper with Claire, West and Cashmire, the other three boys went down too, though they resumed their usual storm of insulting to people, mainly being Peeta and Finch, the latter being someone I couldn't look at in the same way as I had before seeing the images on Finnick's phone. It was a recurring memory.

The band of bullies seemed to target those that would be easy to insult, effectively the people who were relatively alone. Luke had been picked on, along with the rather pretty tanned blonde girl I had yet to learn the name of, who was taking a lot of it to heart, eventually walking off back to her room.

The apparent couple of Li and David also sat together, a little too close together, whispering about various things that had little to no relevance, though whispering at a volume that had been easy for me to hear, though not understand at all as they spoke in spainish. We, as a group, had formed what had appeared to be a protective bubble of social status around Cashmire, as she received nothing other than a few evil glares.

I moved to sit up, though Finnick's spooning prevented me from doing so without being a gymnast. I sighed, shuffling slightly to get a little looser from the hold of his heavy limb, before manoeuvring myself away from him and standing myself up. Of course the roof of the so called structure impeded my advance, and as I stood, it decided to collapse down onto me, pulling three duvets down in a swirling miasma of chaos and silk.

I tumbled back to the floor as the duvets avalanched down onto me, crushing me beneath the feathery softness of the silken sheets. A collection of gasps and exclamations from the left and the right of me confirmed that I had woken the other boys, but with my legs ensnared in the scraggly bottom duvet, I was unable to steady myself after a second attempt at a dignified standing, and yet again, I fell right back down. I fell to my left this time, toppling down on top of Cato and Marvel, who both grunted and cursed, before I was rolled back into the allocated space provided for me.

In my brief moments of freedom from the dark confines of the now destroyed den, I noticed a slit of light echoing through the tiny space between the two curtains that had been drawn across. We had probably overslept. But alas, in the current company I was in, thinking about poultry things such as that didn't matter in the slightest, because it soon became apparent, that I would be fighting somewhat for my life, my dignity at the very least.

"Pillow fight!" Finnick exclaimed, making my jaw drop, as my ears picked up some scuffling sounds to my left as I attempted to untangle myself from the duvet like net that ensnared my feet, though by the time I was free and climbing onto my feet, I felt the harsh sting of a pillow, full force, into the face.

I grunted, and fell back down to the floor yet again, now moving past the point of being a joke, it wasn't even funny. I looked up at Marvel throwing a pillow deftly and strongly at Cato, who took it to the gut, before I glanced up at Finnick, who was standing above me, mercilessly holding a pillow above his head with a devilish glint to his eye.

I squealed, violently kicking out towards his leg, maybe too hard as he tumbled straight down, though I still had built up anger from being hit in the face. I glanced around at the carnage that was unfolding around us, Cato and Marvel wrestling on the floor in front of the wardrobe in a manner that looked more pleasuring than it did violent, though their rolling around was bound to cause some sort of issue, I didn't have a chance to comprehend that, because soon, a flurry of light jabs into my sides sent my body into spasm, before Finnick crawled on top of me, effectively pinning me down.

He giggled softly as I squirmed in my futile attempt to escape, though in truth I didn't think I wanted too, although with his next move, I realised that I didn't. His hands snaked up my arms, moving them until they were above my head where he held them in a one handed iron grasp, softly chuckling as his now free hand snaked lower on my naked torso, flickering across my left nipple for an instant, making me hiss, before moving to my underarm.

My underarms were utterly hairless, from the continual repercussions of an event a year prior that lead me to keep my underarms shaved. I had been happy enough knowing that in a school, underarm hair would be nothing more than a nuisance, poking out of the sleeve of a short t-shirt when you answered a question, nothing could be more humiliating. Though now, in this moment, without the canopy of coarse hair that turned your armpits into a cesspool after a jog down the stairs, I was vulnerable, and Finnick's all too eager fingers were making quick work finding the nerves that travelled so close to my skin.

He started moving his fingertips lightly against the skin, which sent my teeth clamping down on my lip before I opened my eyes, trying to give him a stern look that would make him stop. His face was arranged in the form of a predatory smirk, his sea green eyes glinting with something that I couldn't make out, before his fingers moved into a tempest of vibrations that had me squirming in less than an instant, my eyes screwed shut and my mouth exploding with a swarm of obscenities that could prove very offensive to pretty much anybody.

It was difficult to supress the primal urge that swelled inside me, begging to be released and protect me from this onslaught I was receiving, though it was little use now, being nothing more than a lightning strike that could potentially destroy the dorm room. Lightning strikes at the strength of Five Billion Joules, the only thing I ever learnt from my physics teacher, she was pissed most of the time.

"Erm… Bad timing?" A new voice shouted out, a voice that I did not recognise, which sent Finnick's head swirling to the right, a time I promptly used to knee him in the testicles, to which he squealed like a stuck pig before flopping down onto my left side, me jumping up quickly so he could not recover and do something as equally painful as me .

I glanced at the door, looking at the boy there, his skin tanned and muscles rippling underneath a tight white shirt. He was almost a half way between Finnick and Cato, but with darker skin and dark hair, he looked fairly Latino, maybe he was Italian, his heritage at least.

"No not really." Cato chuckled, sitting up so his lap was on Marvels crotch, which I guessed to be a huge tease for the lithe boy; I doubted he got to top.

"I was just giving you back War in the North…" The boy, who I believed was called Gale, muttered fairly meekly, the origins of which I guessed to be from the fact he was probably straight and he had just walked in on what probably looked like a gay orgy. He grinned lightly, moving the Xbox game in his hand to the top of the unit that the Television was resting on, which was quickly becoming a mosh pit of Xbox related material, three games, four controllers, a headset and an Xbox magazine.

"Yeah cheers." Cato mumbled in response, before moving a little bit lower to nibble on the side of Marvel's neck, making the smaller boy squirm and writhe under him, Cato clearly playing on a sensitive spot.

"You guys do know first lesson is in five minutes right?" Gale then asked, looking at me mainly, then glancing down to Finnick who had arranged himself into a sitting position, lightly cupping his crotch looking up at me and pouting, which didn't suit his masculine face very well.

I felt my jaw drop, looking at Gale with huge eyes before I walked over to my desk and turned on my phone where indeed the time was nine fifthty four. We had six minutes until I needed to be in the art classroom on the other side of campus. I hadn't showered and I hadn't chosen what clothes to wear. I was fucked.

* * *

Being on a semi friend basis with Marvel and Cato was actually proving to have some pretty large benefits. When we arrived at the art room five minutes late, the teacher looked at us, then moved his head back down to his desk, clearly knowing better than to make any form of comment towards the jock who was striding into the room like he was the king of the world.

The two of them made a beeline to the free table at the back of the classroom, sitting themselves opposite Peeta, who looked up to acknowledge their presence, before slumping down on the table in a depressive manner. I wondered if the two boys would tease him, I wondered if their bullying ventured into the classroom, I doubt the teachers would comment, they all seemed afraid of the Career group from what I had seen prior to that, apart from Miss Mags, she was a tough old bitch.

I had two options in seating, which was either on a table with two people who I didn't know and then Li aimlessly staring at the door to the room. The other option was the free seat next to Peeta, which was the option that I chose, making a beeline for that seat after it occurred to me that I was standing up in the room with everybody looking at me.

I sat down, dumping my bag on the floor, noticing a lightning quick glance that Peeta sent me, which was quickly absorbed by the table once more, he was obviously worried about sitting with the pair of blondes. Although at this table we were all blonde. It was only then I noticed a collection of canvases on a neat pile in the centre of the table, with a collection of different coloured bottles which I assumed to contain paints and a jug of clean water with a collection of brushes inside it. It then occurred to me that I was in a room with a collection of paints, and Marvel and Cato. This was going to be a fun lesson.

I could see that nobody else was planning on taking a canvas, so I reached out and took two off of the pile, placing one in front of myself, my fingers grazing over the textured white sheet before I passed the second one to Peeta, simply knocking it against his arm, which was sleeved by something I wouldn't wipe my floor with- let alone wear. This boy needed to go on a shopping trip with my credit card.

He looked up at me for a second, before he snatched the canvas from my hands, before turning away from me, even going to the extremes of tilting his chair away from me like a small child having at temper tantrum. I had tried to be nice, yet he had simply been a dick in return. Peeta confused me. He then proved to confuse me even more by slipping a pair of sunglasses, which couldn't have cost any more than about four dollars, or rather, were worth no more than four dollars, and taking a paint pallet and squirting some coloured paint into it, taking a brush and exploding into a rhythm of coloured brush strokes.

I realised that he had to have held a serious grudge on me, even though I hadn't really done anything to him, other than ask a simple question. I shrugged off any hope of contact with Peeta, before looking down at the depressive white of my canvas, before some childish giggles stole my attention, and I glanced up, before a wet splat hit the canvas to the left of my hand, missing it by mere centimetres.

Cato dropped the brush he was holding, adjusting his glance so he was looking at a patch of the ceiling that had suddenly become amazingly interesting. I pouted, but Marvel had already given it away with his cheeky giggle that made him seem like a young child who wasn't secretly covered in bruises.

I went back to looking down at my canvas, taking a brush and pressing the bristles into the fresh splodge of paint, feeling it squelching through the entirety of the brush. I wiggled it about a little, wondering what I could paint, knowing that I was appalling at this particular subject. It was almost as bad as cooking was.

I took a bottle of crimson paint, and simply squirted it into the centre of the course material, before taking the blue paint and doing the exact same thing, watching the two colours merge together. I took the brush and aimlessly spread the colours over the aching white of the canvas, the cerulean and crimson merging together in some locations creating a miasma of different shades of indigo.

Occasionally I would glance up and notice a new speck of paint on the face of each of the boys in front of me, they weren't being as loud as they were in art, in some ways I was disappointed, art was boring. Although the two boys had decorated each other's faces with black and blue, it was fairly vanilla compared to some of the antics that could have unfolded in an art lesson.

I looked down at the mass of colour in front of me before glancing over at the work of art Peeta was creating, being something significantly better than what I had produced. From what I could gather so far there was grass on the bottom, but that was all I could decipher from my angle. I sighed and turned back to my own attempt at art, where my eyes widened and my jaw dropped.

My indigo storm had been raped by a splatter of lemon yellow paint that ripped a hole through the purple like a blade though a Japanese screen door; I didn't know why they had been invented anyway because they didn't seem to be very practical. I then looked up at Cato, who was once again looking at that little spot on the ceiling that had his attention so ensnared. I then looked at Marvel, who was also avoiding eye contact, though probably because he felt awkward around me ever since I had asked about Elle Bishop. I guessed that I was too cunning for my own good.

I then looked back to Cato, who had a slight grin on his face which confirmed that he had indeed just ruined my work, although there wasn't much to ruin, I could still be pissed. I took the bottle of crimson paint and aimed it at his canvas, which was still snowy white. I squirted the bottle firmly, only to find that the cap was still tightly on. I removed it promptly and aimed it back at Cato's blank canvas, though now his eyes were firmly locked on mine, his head tilted in a way that said 'what-the-hell-will-you-do-about-it'.

I tilted my head down in defeat, placing the bottle back on the table and hanging my head even lower. I childishly batted my hand out and caught the side of Cato's bottle that was filled to the brim with coke, sending it clattering under one of the desks in the column next to us.

"Dude what the hell…" Cato muttered, slouching and standing up to go and fetch the bottle that had been sent flying. "I didn't make you get up. Finnick is the one who gets you up…" He said after, and although he hadn't intended me to hear the second bit, I had indeed, and it stung.

I knew for a fact Finnick had shagged him at some point in their time at this school, well it was fairly obvious, I mean Finnick had apparently shagged everyone other than Gale and Katniss. Peeta hadn't shagged him either; well not as far as I knew. He had also probably shagged Finch, if he could get his cock through that mesh of barbed wire. Cato had definitely shagged him.

I had intended to leave fizzing up his bottle to an explosive potential as my revenge, but his low blow deserved one of equal lowness. I took the bottle of crimson, cap still off, and aimed it at his chair, firing a quick blast of red paint onto the red surface of the plastic chair, which was almost unnoticeable. The bottle was set back down only seconds before Cato stood back up, carrying his bottle of coke close to his chest as he strode, setting it down firmly on the table, giving me a hard glare, before plonking down firmly in his seat.

If he hadn't felt the squishiness from the paint that was underneath him, he was certainly alerted to it by the outburst of giggles from Marvel and myself. He looked at me as if I had just killed his mother, a look of pure anger and hatred, when out of the blue, his hand shot out to his bottle and gave it a violent shaking, before pointing it in my direction and spinning the cap easily and giving the bottle a toss towards me.

I squealed and made a feeble attempt at batting it away, although I didn't really want to, because getting involved in the fun was the way of becoming their friends. The bottle was fizzing uncontrollably by the time it was in my lap, and streams of dark foam were ejaculating all over me, the girls on the near table and Peeta. The girls screamed, I laughed, Cato giggled, Marvel was in utter hysterics, but Peeta was silent, still painting as if he hadn't just been sprayed with Coca-Cola fizz. I looked up at Cato, who had his arms crossed, smirking proudly, to which I lifted the bottle to my mouth and took a deep swig of the liquid, the carbon making my eyes water slightly, but I attempted to keep the eye contact going.

I noticed that Marvel was still in hysterics, his eyes streaming with tears, the little innocent one who had yet to be splattered by some form of embarrassment.

I was thinking about what I could do to get that boy utterly embarrassed, but Cato was quicker than I was, taking the pitcher of dirty paint water and casting it over the boys soft blonde locks. Now it was my turn to giggle and Marvel's turn to pout, the soft pinkness of his lips clashing against the now grimy skin of his face, the blondeness of his hair darkened through saturation.

My hearty giggles were drowned out when a rather vicious spurt of green shot at me, the paint bottle in Cato's hands being the source of it. I attempted to wipe the green from my features, though I imagined that I was doing nothing more than smearing it into my skin. That was of little concern to me though, I would shower once the lesson was over, but for now I was one of the gang.

I took a bottle of white paint deftly from the table as Cato did the same to the bottle of black, the two of us utterly motionless when a flex of the fingers would ruin the clothing of the other boy. Cato had little to worry in that front, he was dressed plainly in a white, sleeveless top that did little to conceal the bulging biceps that he boasted, but I suspected that that was indeed the idea of the top, to tease. His lower half sported a pair of simple white shorts, which were now likely a red underneath from the paint underneath him.

I on the other hand had an outfit that cost around two hundred pounds ruined, though it mattered little, I could replace it with ease, it wasn't my favourite and, most importantly, I had become part of the group.

Cato fired first. I simply ducked my head and released a stream of white, flicking the bottle to and fro as to get both boys under the stream. I felt the pressure on my head the whole time, feeling it deepening into my hair with what I suspected would not come out with ease. But my own retaliation was also likely to be destructive, had it been continued, but alas, it was not. Someone intervened.

"That is it! You three get out of my classroom!" A shout came from behind me, laced with as much fear as anger. I flicked my hair naturally, sending a splat of unearthly black onto Peeta's shoulder, before looking at the other two boys, both of which were laughing and getting their bags ready, clearly not planning on arguing, something I also had no plan to do.

I slung my bag over my shoulder, and moved to turn to the exit of the room, before I noticed Peeta slouch back in his chair, revealing his painting. A girl in a pleated skirt and a boy with black hair, apparently fleeing from a gush of water exploding from a tap. I shrugged and followed the other two boys closely. I needed that shower.

* * *

I sighed mournfully, observing my face in the darkened screen of my phone. It turned out that the paint that had been slathered oh so thoroughly through my hair was slightly harder to get out of my hair that I had anticipated and even the half hour I had spent in the shower had not sought to rid me of the colour. Though in all honesty I had spent the majority of that time stealing glances at Cato's naked body, which in all honesty was gorgeous. It seemed I had been thrust into a world of gorgeous looking teens and it was only a matter of time before a gorgeous looking teen thrust into me. I giggled at my own joke, before my face returned to its scowl in the knowledge that my hair was now black as sin. My sister would not be amused.

Claire and West were the first two to enter the lounge where I was seated, the latter of the two bursting into mocking laughter, whilst the former immediately sat herself next to me and rested her hand on my knee, asking what happened. West's jealousy was clearer than the sky as he immediately made an attempt to sit on the futon with the two of us on, to which was a hopeless task, forcing him to move onto the opposite one, his distaste becoming apparent.

Monica was the next one to arrive, taking a glance at me before mouthing a stereotypical 'Oh hell no!' and pulling a fairly stereotypical pout. Had my mood been one of lighter nature, I would have laughed, but at this moment, I could not do such a thing. When my sister saw I would receive an endless crusade of lectures and expectations of my behaviour. I knew she would, she was becoming more motherly than even my mother. My blood chilled in my veins when I thought about what she would say when I lost my virginity. I would be in for a scolding.

"Zephyr René Rocheford what in fucks name have you done with your hair! Answer now or so help me I will rip your testicles off of your body and feed them to a pigeon!" My sister screamed, the volume, combined with the shock of it coming when I didn't know she was there, made me jump a fair distance into the air, cursing violently and standing up, knowing that if I needed to I could flee into my bedroom and hide.

"I had a paint fight in art." I whispered feebly, my sister being one of the few people who could scare me, which was a combination of her natural ferocity, and her ability.

"And you dyed your hair!" She screamed, throwing a textbook she was holding at me, which I deftly moved to dodge.

"*Please calm down!*" I wailed to her, switching to French in the hope that it would calm her nerves somewhat. "*Why are you so angry about it anyway!"

"*Because you're changing! You are mixing in with the wrong people and you are going to change!*" She ranted back at me, not with the sincerity that would have been expected from her, just a demonic tone of rage that did little more than wind me up even more than she already had done.

"*And it is not your place to comment on that!*" I shouted back, hardly noticing the utterly perplexed glances that the rest of our friends were shooting us, though I did notice West creep into the space abandoned by myself.

"*But you are my baby brother and I love you! I don't want you to become…*" My sister began, before she began sobbing and spluttering in her words, the change of attitude which confirmed to me that she was indeed on her period. I was surprised that there was no structural damage. My sister became a demon when on her period. Almost like the Balrog of Morgoth from Lord of the Rings, but less flames.

I moved over and hugged her softly, murmuring shushing sounds into her ear to comfort her. She hugged me back with ferocity, almost stopping me from breathing, when a small voice from behind us caught us both off guard.

"E-excuse me…" The voice murmured, sending six heads spinning around to look at who it was. When we saw it brought out a few noiseless groans. Li. "I w-was wondering if any of you have seen David… He has g-gone missing…" She mumbled, looking at me as if I was going to eat her. It then occurred to me that she would have heard and understood our conversation in French, naturally being a little scared about the row we had just had, it was a rather intimidating sight to behold.

"No I haven't seen him since last night." West mumbled from the left of us, looking at the Asian girl for a moment, before catching the sorrow in her eyes. "But you can hang around with us until we find him again."

"No t-that's okay…" She mumbled, looking down at her feet and moving to turn away. "Thanks anyway…"

We watched as she hobbled off, until she had left the room, where I felt it appropriate to let go of my sister and comment on the usually excitable girl's behaviour.

"She seems a little bit put out doesn't she?" I asked, though the question was relatively rhetorical, anyone with eyes could have seen that the girl was put out.

"I don't think you're little argument was helpful…" Monica commented, pouting at us. "What was it all about?"

"Don't worry, family stuff." My sister chimed in instantly, giving me a look that told me if I mentioned anything about her time of the month she would break my arm. Being twins and all, I always knew when she was on her period. I always noticed the mood change. And she knew that too…

* * *

"What do we do now?" My sister asked me, staring blankly at the tap that was in front of us, one that seemed as though it was not working, we could not get a drip out of it. It was my second lesson of the day, Horticulture, so far it was not going well.

We were both utterly puzzled by the large metal tap sticking out of the ground. We had tried turning it as far as it would go in either direction, before we became puzzled utterly. The teacher had also decided to leave and wander off elsewhere which meant, that save for asking for help from another student, which was not a likely course of action, we were stuck.

"Why don't you try turning it the other way?" Amy continued, looking at my hand, the bronzed skin clashing fairly strikingly against the metallic silver of the tap, even though it was slightly tarnished from being outside.

"I just did!" I fired back at my sister, frustration quickly fusing together with my natural impatience to create anger.

"Yeah that is why I said turn it the _other_ way!" Amy snapped back stomping with her foot, making her pleated skirt rise up a little bit before she smoothed it down with her hands, taking some deep breaths to calm herself.

"Yeah I just did turn it the _other _way." I retorted, spinning the tap wildly in both directions with ferocity, it was quickly forming in my mind that I was as useful as a set of lemon eye drops in this school. I really wasn't good at anything. Other than changing the weather. And having a good fashion sense.

"Don't take that tone with me!" She snapped again, leading me to give the tap one final angry twist before I placed my hands on my hips and sighed angrily. "… What's this." My sister then mumbled, but I ignored it, giving the tap a good stout kick.

I heard the noise of a valve twisting, stiffly, and my head turned to look at it, a red handle on the base of the tap that had been sticking out at a right angle and was now vertical with the tarnished pipe at the base of the tap. We hadn't even connected the hose yet. We had gardeners for this sort of thing at home anyway.

"Not made any difference…" I mumbled sarcastically, spinning the nob of the now loose tap all the way to the other end, which made my sister and I scream. A jet of ice cold water gushed fourth from the tap, hitting us with a freezing spray feeling like needles on our skin, very big needles.

We were soaked in less than a second; the jet ricocheted off of the edge of the watering can that was directly underneath the stream, soaking us whilst we struggled to the tap to turn it off. We collided heads, falling backwards onto the floor, one of us knocking the watering can over and soaking the both of us before we stumbled to the tap and madly span it, standing the watering can up on the way to try and catch some of the water to prevent flooding our feet.

"Turn it off!" My sister screeched, pushing the tap aimlessly in one direction before pushing it in the other direction.

In the end it was I who saved us, kicking the red valve down into a horizontal position, which stopped the flow of water only seconds before the watering can would have overflown.

It was only then that we noticed the jeering laughter from the class, which made my sister blush. But me… I didn't blush, in fact I relished it, The attention, from people other than my parents and sister, was a new feeling, and I liked it. It was electric, chemical, powerful. It was as if nicotine flowing through my veins every time people looked at me. Everybody was looking at me. Cato, Finnick, Marvel, Clove, the blonde girl and a collection of other students in the class, other than one. Peeta.

It hit me in the face. My hair was black; my sister was in a pleated skirt; the water… It was the same as his drawing. I looked at him harshly, willing him to turn around, but he did not. It was too weird for me, I needed to draw fourth some form of reaction from him… I vowed to talk to him at some point in the next day.

"Zeph wet himself!" Someone shouted, although the tone dictated that it was one person that made me squirm just by speaking. Finnick.

I turned around and looked at him, desperate for some of that eye contact that gave me heat that only he could provide. His back was to me, and his white clad shoulder blades were not as fulfilling as the heated stare he could give me, though they were still sexy shoulders. As far as shoulders went anyway.

My face broke into a smirk as I gently crouched down to pick up the watering can, holding it hard in my hand and picking it up, ignoring the protesting from my sister, heading for Finnick. As far as Pride and Prejudice was concerned, hot guy looked good in a wet white top. And of course that I liked the attention it would bring to me. And of course, it was funny.

He was close enough to me that it took a total of five strides to reach him, and in one swift movement I emptied the water over his head, which was met with a shriek and a squeal, a few octaves higher than I had heard it before, other than that first night.

"Oh fuck you little cunt!" A voice said, one that did not belong to Finnick, it was Russian.

I had just emptied about a litre of water over Gloss.


	9. Close to You

_**Hey guys, I am so sorry for taking so long to get this chapter up and running, but I have just had an absolutely cray-cray month, i started sixth form and i have more work and i have been stressing with that and then i got writers block :(**_

_**But i have knuckled down and put my thinking cap on and i think i have got something acceptable. **_

_**I have tried to make it up to you in this chapter (because it is soooooooo late) by adding in some stuff that I think people will like. Wink to all you Zinnick shippers xD.**_

_**Btw, 'Snogging' is French kissing…**_

* * *

**Close to You**

**Panem School for the gifted and talented, Nebraska, USA**

I frowned as I inspected the damage to my jaw in the mirror, looking at the now relatively open wound with a fair amount of regret and a little hint of anger. The damage was slightly worse than it felt, which was irritating enough as it was, not to mention the constant coppery taste of blood in my mouth… It didn't taste pleasant. In fact, I would struggle greatly at becoming a vampire.

I had tipped a watering can filled with icy cold water over Gloss' head, the following look he gave me made me want to have super speed as my power, just to get away from him. His eyes had been smouldering in a way that was neither sexy nor passionate, it was simply a look filled with rage.

Somehow, out of the blue, Cato had saved my skin from the rage filled Gloss, by pointing a hose that they had somehow attached to the end of the pipe, at the blonde girl whose name I expected was Glimmer. It had quickly dissolved down into a water fight and I thought that I was home free, but I wasn't.

Gloss had caught up to me after the lesson, myself having a free period next and him heading back to the dorm room for whatever reason, most likely simply to hunt me down. He caught up to me just as I was heading into my room, exchanging a few words, telling me something about him going to kill me if I ever did anything like that again, and then punching me in the face.

I never realised that rings could hurt so much, Gloss wore about seven of them across his knuckles, maybe for the sole purpose of backing up his punches. It was very likely that he had thrown them at everyone, though throughout Marvel's mosaic of bruises, I had not noticed one that looked as if the skin had been broken at all. I had grunted from the hit, it was the first time anyone had ever punched me, fallen to the floor, been spat on, something that I was less than happy about, and then been ditched. My face started to bleed instantaneously, so I retreated inside the room to inspect the damage.

I looked at it again, the blood dripping slowly down my tanned chin, contrasting greatly with my now black hair, making me look like some sort of fetish, emo pornstar. I giggled lightly at my comment, regretting it instantly as a wave of pain radiated from the broken skin, burning me with a dull pain I had not yet experienced. I hadn't needed to deal with people in my life at all, let alone ones with what seemed to be psychopathic tendencies.

I sighed, ignoring the cut for the moment, simply thinking about the two choices that I had in front of me, wondering what to do, though to me it was a fairly obvious decision. I could either go and apologise to my sister, who had told me that she wasn't going to her French class because she already knew the language, though I made it very clear that she could skive whatever classes she wanted too, it made no difference to me. My second choice was to go and talk to Finnick, who I knew shared free periods with me. The choice was obvious. I wanted to talk to Finnick…

Maybe talk was not the best word to describe it with, because I knew that I wanted something more than talking. I wanted the heat that the fiery chasm of his mouth would likely provide my body should he want to caress me with his lips. I wanted to be pulled into the embrace of his arms and be held by the boy. I also wanted to find his hands wandering lower onto my body, caressing places that nobody else had touched, places that I imagined that he would be very good at caressing.

A loud burst of frantic knocks on the door smacked me out of my train of slightly indecent thoughts, making me dissolve back into reality. I turned towards the door in haste, knowing that if my sister had come to shout at me, she would not be best pleased if I was even two seconds longer than I should have been, she was a prompt person.

It was only then that I realised the hardness in my trousers, which rubbed uncomfortably against the silk of my underwear, stealing not nearly enough friction from the smooth fibres to draw any amount of pleasure. I grumbled, knowing that the small walk from the wardrobe to the door was aggravating my erection further, teasing it and keeping it harder than I would have liked to have it. I knew that I wouldn't have been able to conceal it in my trousers. That was next to impossible.

Another knock echoed through the room; sounding impatient considering the knocker had only just struck for the first time. I realised then that it was not my sister, because she wasn't that impatient, she was simply prompt. Whoever this was, they had something to ask or say that had a reason other than moaning at me. Or they were here to talk to Cato and I would need to tell them to go away. Either way I would feel a little bit better about myself.

I took a few steps to the door, reaching my hand out to touch the handle, twisting it gently and pulling it open, the door sliding effortlessly over the cream carpet, which was clean at the moment, though I expected that once Cato started to gain possession of alcohol, which was bound to be sooner rather than later, it would become marginally more stained.

"Marvel?" I questioned, seeing the slightly taller blonde walk into my room, shutting the door briskly and moving the latch so that the room was locked.

"Yeah I know, happy to see me and shit. Let's get on with this." He fired back, walking across the room to sit firmly on Cato's unmade bed, the room still being messy from the remnants of the den that were scattered across the floor of the room.

"Get on with what?" I asked, moving over to sit next to him, though I changed my mind and sat on my own bed, knowing that I would probably be irritated if Cato sat on my bed, so it should be the same if I sat on his. I was leaning quickly about how things worked in a boarding school.

"Elle Bishop… Y'know, all I know?" He drawled in return, pouting cutely and looking at me as if I was a little bit insane, though it became fairly clear that I had totally forgotten about it considering it was at the top of my agenda since day one.

"Oh yeah, well go on then…" I instructed, moving my legs up onto my bed and sitting cross legged, like a young child awaiting a story,

"Well, Cato told me this in confidence. He'd kill me if he found out." Marvel mumbled, looking shamefacedly at the floor before he continued. "Basically, the careers at the school, the main ones: Cato, Clove, Gloss, Myself, the others… Cashmire too actually… Our parents paid money, lot of it, so we could get given synthetic abilities given to us." He continued, looking at me for a brief moment as if I would tell him that he was insane, though of course I wouldn't, I knew what an ability was, but then again he didn't know that.

"It was a risky programme, and they managed to develop a serum last year that they thought would work, they tried it on Elle. And like it worked like instantly y'know?" He continued, his face now divulging into a slightly darker shade, clearly either ashamed or embarrassed about what he was telling me.

"So she got an ability? What could she do?" I asked, not overly sure about how interested I could be before I needed to turn it into scepticism.

"She _can_, she still has it, fire electricity out of her hands." He stopped briefly, watching my reaction, and I ensured that my jaw dropped a little, so it was still attractive, nothing was worse than the unattractive surprised face.  
"So it worked?" I asked, suddenly in realisation of how illegal this school probably was, giving biological enhancements to teenagers had to be breaking some form of law.

"For a while… Then the side effects came along. You think Gloss is a bit psycho… She's killed people." Marvel half whispered, half mouthed at me, which did unfortunately hit me with the unattractive jaw drop.

"Why? Who?" I spurted in return, feeling the spit leave my mouth in shock, thanking my own conscience for not sitting any closer to the boy.

"The most resent was the end of last year, this girl who sat on a bench that she wanted to sit on. She fried her."

"So that's why everyone gets all stingy when I mention her name…" I reassured myself, wondering why she was still at the school.

"No, nobody remembers that other than the careers. The Haitian can erase memories, she was wiped off of the map totally other than the careers and teachers. All of the teachers have powers, well like 90%, I don't think Mrs Coolidge does, she's never used it anyway, and Mr Beetee and Wiress don't, and probably a few others."

"So the side effects are anger? I guess she was the only one who took the serum then." I returned, slightly awed at how many skeletons this school had in its cupboard, worry hitting me like a train when I realised that the reason Myself, my sister and Claire were here could have been experimentation.

"No, Gloss did too, but he took a slightly milder form of it, his anger isn't so bad, but his power isn't particularly amazing…" Marvel mumbled, with a slight smile.

"What is it?" I asked, realising that I needed to play a scepticism card quickly.

"He can breathe underwater. But he can't swim." Marvel snickered, and I found myself laughing too, but I straightened up in time, knowing that I needed to be sceptical now.

"Well as you came up with such a unique tale, I won't make you tell me the truth, I won't tell anyone about the little chat we had." I said, putting a slightly patronising twang in my voice just for him.

"What! No this is the fucking truth! I know it sounds dumb but you gotta' believe me." He shouted at first, before mumbling the end of it, looking down at the floor in what was most likely embarrassment.

"Okay, I believe you. But really the bonus is we found out that Finnick has naked pictures of Foxcrotch on his phone, and he isn't showing your boyfriend pictures of us looking like we are about to kiss." I agreed very fast, before dissolving into a stream of humour that would hopefully make him forget how quickly I confirmed that I believed him.

"My boyfriend? Cato isn't my boyfriend…" Marvel mumbled, which was now becoming something of a habit in this conversation.

"What is he to you then? You act pretty couple-y?" I returned, utterly confused by the sudden comment from the boy.

"It's… Complicated…" He mumbled yet again, leading me to shrug and think about what I could say next.

Everything was complicated now.

* * *

"See ya then." Marvel chirped, picking up one of the many Xbox controllers from the room and flopping down on the eyesore sofa, intending to game his life away until his 'sort of friends with benefits but not really because we are more than that but still like not dating and stuff but it isn't all sex. Yeah?' or in other words, Cato, returned from his lesson.

I shut the door quietly, trying not to alert anyone of my presence whilst I attempted to sneak out to go and find my sister to brief her about the information that I had just found out, knowing she would know what to do with it better than I did.

I felt a tightness surround my waist, and I instantly thought that someone was kidnapping me to erase my memory because Marvel had just told me something that I wasn't supposed to know. I felt a finger press just below my jaw, pushing up with it in order to examine my bruise.

"What happened to my little baby?" A familiar voice hummed into my ear, which made my entire body dissolve into relaxation, actually smiling to myself softly about how much paranoia I had built up from one story. I then smiled even harder when I realised that Finnick was holding me, and once again, my heart went aflutter.

"Have you been outside just waiting for me?" I asked him, as he tugged me slightly closer to his body, still looking at my bruised and possibly bloody jaw. "And Gloss happened to me." I added, to ensure he wouldn't need to repeat himself, because that was always awkward.

"Yeah I have, didn't want little Zeph getting all sexy with Marvel. After what happened yesterday…" Finnick began, running the pad of his finger lightly across the bruise, which made me wince a little bit, knowing that I probably looked a lot less pretty than I usually would.

"We weren't doing anything yesterday Finn, it was just the worst time you could have seen us." I returned, adjusting myself so that I could face him, regretting it instantly as the uncomfortable hardness I had clashed against him, which made me bite my lip lightly.

"Finn…" He said, his eyes half glassing over as he stared into space for a few moments, before his eyes flicked back to me. "Nobody's called me that for a really long time." He muttered, which made me wonder if it was something I was not supposed to hear.

I looked at the tanned Australian in front of me for a few moments, taking in the pure beauty in his form, before I made the brashest move I had ever made in my life. There was something overly captivating about his soft lips and his perfect eyes, my heart fluttered towards him and the rest of me followed.

I moved my right hand up to cup his face delicately, palming the skin with gentleness I had seldom shown in my life, before I inched my lips closer to his. The distance suddenly seemed vast and I was desperate to get to the Finnick line. That small smile that hung on his mouth in a way that was slightly lopsided to anyone who was paying enough attention, which I guessed was not many, because if you were ever this close to Finnick Odair's mouth, you were going to kiss him.

My lips lightly brushed across his, which made the muscles in his face twinge in surprise, before a pair of soft, tanned hands rose up and captured my cheeks in their feathery palms, before the kiss deepened slightly. His wet lips pressed against mine, the feeling reminding me of melting butter somehow, and his experience showed clear as day, because he was amazing at what he was doing, not that I had anyone to compare too but still…

I knew that I was little more than another little kiss in Finnick's collection, but I really had little care for that, as all I wanted was a chance to try and prove I was better than the other sluts and whores he probably got with. I wanted to have his attention. I was special and I wanted the best trophy for it. If it had not been for Marvel revealing that only Gloss and Elle had powers I would have guessed that Finnick had some form of power of seduction. But this was naturally occurring. It was scary to think about how powerful he would be if the school did develop this serum.

"I knew you couldn't resist me for very long babe… Nobody can…" He whispered confidently as he pulled away from me, when I snuggled closer into him, burying my head against the side of his neck comfortably as he moved his arms to my back, hugging me close to him in a way that surprised me, I didn't expect him to display such affection.

"Well you've been flirting twenty four seven, I just felt sorry for you because you weren't getting anywhere…" I mumbled in return, smiling softly as I felt Finnick's warm breath blow past my fringe, the warmth puffing softly against my forehead as I moved out of his snuggle, removing my head from the crook of his neck to look him in the eye.

He laughed heartily, smiling from ear to ear before he pouted at me, which made me giggle myself, both knowing what I had just said was utter bullshit. He smiled softly, before placing a chaste kiss on my forehead and taking a step away from me.

"Well then if you don't like me maybe I should just give up with you and move on to someone else…" He stated, holding his hand up to his head in mock hurt, making me giggle all the more and lunge forward to hold him, which he ignored in an overly exaggerated manner. "Don't waste your love on somebody, who doesn't value it." He stated, again with the over exaggeration of Keira Knightly.

"The course of true love never did run smooth." I jousted back, quoting 'a midsummer night's dream' at him from what I remembered from my English lessons with Mr Blackmore, he was so hot...

"That isn't Romeo and Juliet?" Finnick questioned, which was the only reason I realised he was quoting Shakespeare, which made me giggle softly, before I replied.

"That is because it's Midsummer night's dream. Anyway moving on from the Shakespeare…" I began, giggling softly at the confused face that Finnick consistently pulled, before I was shut up by a very unexpected comment.

"Wanna' fuck?"

It was a simple two words that made my bottom jaw hit the floor at high speed, utterly baffled by what he had just asked of me.  
"Finn! That is brash and inapro-pro!" I wailed, gawking at him, where his pupils dilated in a way that told me he was no longer going to be a sweetheart to me, he was going to be a horny bitch who I would need to fend off with a stick.

"Oh come on, I bet you've said that to tons and gone off and shagged people in bathrooms and all that shit." He stated in response, defending himself with something that was wrong. I knew that I was going to enjoy destroying his wall and maybe making him feel a tiny bit guilty at the same time, though that was unlikely.

"Actually I'm a virgin. And my first kiss was yesterday when you forced me into it. It was practically lip rape." I stated confidently in response, before his hand reached out and took mine, slowly tightening his grip, though I still didn't look at him, before I was suddenly tugged in a direction.

The next thing I knew I was in his bedroom, which was pretty much the same as the one I had, apart from that there was no Xbox next to the television. And of course, I felt so sorry for Peeta. Everywhere you looked on Finnick's side of the room you saw a picture of an arse, or a pair of breasts, or a six pack, or a huge cock, in fact, looking on Finnick's side of the room was like looking at a porn website, but with no age warning.

"Finnick, this is so sleazy…" I whined, as he continued to tug me to his bed, which I made difficult for him by not moving my feet. When he managed to get me there, he sat me down softly, before sitting next to me and gently putting an arm around me. I didn't know what his purpose was, but I arched into him anyway, craving the comforting feeling I gained from being close to him.

"Zeph… Listen, you're a virgin and I am not, so you don't actually know what you're missing, but I am prepared to show you if you want… Right now, Peeta goes to chess club on a Tuesday night so it will be just the two of us for an hour. I'll do it if you want to…" Was as far as his crafty plea for sex got, before I gave up.

He was trying to get me to have sex with him, whilst making it seem like my idea so that he wouldn't need to take any responsibility if I couldn't walk the next day. It was a trick that probably worked on people like Glimmer, if that was her name, or maybe someone like Foxcrotch, but I wasn't going for it.

"I'm not having that Finn. If I wanted to lose my virginity on a whim I would have had sex with someone years ago, it's clear what you want and you can get that off of someone else, but I will never give that to you…"  
"Woah! Calm down Cate Blanchett! I'm having a laugh with you mate… No need to get all dramatic and theatrical with me." He chuckled, his face that was horny and fogged returning to its more natural happiness, his smile emerging onto his features and immediately making me want to believe him, which I wasn't sure if I should do, he could have been joking, but he might not have been.

He smiled and put his strong arms around me, which immediately made my body feel content with screaming bloody murder if he did indeed intend to have sex with me against my will. Finnick was irresistible; I was even beginning to wonder whether Marvel had lied to me about Finnick not having an ability. If he didn't have one then he didn't need one, he was hard enough to resist without having an ability of mind control or pyrokinesis.

"Come on Zeph, we'll use the free time to good use and cuddle yeah?" He smiled, warmly accepting me into his arms and half guiding, half pulling me down onto the bed with him, where my face became pressed against a wonderful smelling pillow which I immediately wanted to steal and have forever.

A comfortable duvet was thrown over the both of us, before a pair of comforting arms embraced me, holding me close to a chest that concealed a heart that was beating at an unnaturally fast pace.  
"I feel really awkward in clothes… In a bed…" I murmured, which made Finnick smile against my head, before his hands arrived at the bottom of my top and began lifting it, slowly enough that I could have made him stop if I wished, but I chose not to. Finnick was sweet when he wasn't horny and I liked sweet Finnick. He was the guy who you showed to your parents and they respected because he was beautiful, caring, athletic, funny and all of the other qualities that made him pretty perfect. Then he also had the side that was likely something that could give you the best shag of your life every night, something that I was only afraid of because it was alien to me, though once I got used to it, I could really learn to like him.

"Penny for your thoughts?" He mumbled softly, as his fingers worked on the buttons on his own shirt, before he pulled it off of his tanned form completely, leaving our bare chests pressed together.

I simply smiled and nuzzled into his neck a little more, mumbling a quick 'you' at him before I closed my eyes and let my mind wander, content in breathing in his scent, feeling his soft hands gently caress the skin on my back. I was in utter bliss. Ignoring his advances for so long was a big mistake, if I hadn't, I would have been experiencing this every night. What could be more perfect than that?

* * *

"Wake up sleepy head… Seriously wake the fuck up." Murmured into my ear as I lolloped out of the realm of sleep, dancing and diving through layers of heavy tiredness before I realised that I was pressed up against something warm and smooth. Then I realised what was going on.

"What time is it." I huskily breathed, feeling Finnick's muscles stir against my chest as I slowly rolled onto my back, stretching out carefully and flexing my neck, before moving my balled up fists to rub the sleep from my eyes.

"Well Captain Adorable, it is six minutes past seven, so dinner time. Thought I might wake you." He softly whispered to me, before he got up and flung his shirt up onto his shoulders, doing the buttons up with unnatural speed.

I moved to sit up, grasping my shirt and dragging it over my head, cringing as I met a warm wet patch on the side of my face, which immediately had me throwing accusations.

"Finnick what did you do?" I asked, wiping the side of my face with my sleeve, looking at the boy in question, who simply chuckled and looked down.

"You dribbled." He snickered, throwing a white and toothy smile at me before extending a hand to help me off of his bed, which I ignored and bounced off of his bed on my own accord.

"Oh god I bet that was attractive." I whined, sarcasm prominent through my voice as I said it, which made Finnick giggle and pull me close to him for a quick kiss. Nothing more than a light brush of his lips on mine, but still enough to get me hard. I blushed and he guided me out of the room, before he turned to me in the corridor, stating some ground rules.

"Well hun' I like you and everything but I can't offer you to sit with us at lunch after you soaked Gloss, plus you don't go to the main hall for dinner anyway do you?" He asked, trying to justify something that didn't need justification. I wouldn't put him over my sister so obviously anyway.

We said our goodbyes and walked down the stupid clanging steps together, where he made a beeline to the door, and I wandered over to a small table, where Monica and my sister were sat, trying to politely catch the attention of one of the weird red people and failing miserably.

"Hey sis…" I murmured, perching myself on the stool next to her, bracing myself for an onslaught from her, which to my surprise, was different to what I was expecting.

"Oh my god Zephyr! Where the hell have you been?! We have looked for you everywhere!" She exploded, leaving me baffled in her concern, then by the comment that she had looked 'everywhere' when she clearly hadn't.

"Where did you actually look?" I asked, as her face spun into a light grin.

"Nowhere but I thought that that would be the best way of apologising… I'm sorry for being all periodic on you baby bro." She told me, sincerely, affectionately patting me on the shoulder in a way which made me feel much happier about her.

"I didn't realise you cared so much." I jousted playfully, sticking my tongue out at her before continuing. "What's for tea because I'm bloody starving!"

"Read it you flid." She giggled in return, making me smile and glance down at the menu.

It was a choice between macaroni and cheese, which in my opinion was what Americans ate when they wanted to commit suicide slowly. Then there was a roast leg of duck with a light garden salad, which looked okay, but not exactly the thing I would want to eat out of all of them. The third option was a 'hamburger and fries' which I translated to burger and chips, immediately loving the idea of such a dish, which would fill me from having no lunch.

The three of us ordered, my sister going for the duck, whilst Monica and I chose the 'hamburger' leading my sister to make a quick obesity comment.

The meals came swiftly, which made me wonder whether they were microwave meals or not, though I forgot all about it when I took a bite from the burger, and swore an oath to myself to always order a burger if it was on the menu. It tasted like bliss.

I finished my dinner at a rate that made my sister pout at me, which I blew off, looking at the desert menu instead. I had a choice between profiteroles and ice cream or a fruit salad. The obvious choice was clear. Who on earth would choose fruit salad over profiteroles? My sister.

She insisted that it was the healthy option, and Monica shamelessly agreed that she didn't need the extra pounds. I rolled my eyes at the both of them, before placing the order.

"Oh my god I forgot to say! That chink girl…" My sister started, before the coke I was sipping, diet, fizzed out of my nose, which I pinched in disgust and gave my sister a mild glare, which didn't work so well as I was giggling at the same time.

"You can't say things like that! Firstly it is really racist. And secondly she is Japanese." I exclaimed at her baffled face, which then turned into a look of disbelief followed by one of contemplation, before she spoke again.

"It is hanging around with us, following us like a lost fucking sheep." She changed it to, which was hardly better.

"How rude." I muttered, before the woman returned, placing a platter of profiteroles in front of me, which I looked at with Glee, imagining Finnick's face if he could see me at the moment.

I giggled softly to myself as I reached into my pocket and pulled out a fairly large freezer bag which I had used to store my phone in during horticulture, removing my phone from it and taking the profiteroles and dropping them into the bag one at a time, not even finishing them by the time the bag was almost full, tying it into a knot at the top.

I then plucked up the remaining profiteroles and ate them, relishing the taste of each one, practically reaching orgasm because of the chocolaty delights. I was definitely enjoying the prospect of tormenting Finnick with them the next time I saw him, that is if I didn't eat them all before I got up to my room. That was going to be difficult to avoid doing.

* * *

"Why is your room such a shit tip Zephyr?" Amy inquired, spinning around on the eyesore of a sofa as I struggled to make the beds from the remnants of the material that were scattered around the room from the so called fort.

"Blame Cato or Finnick. I had nothing to do with the fort. Actually it was my idea but whatever…" I informed them, before mumbling the last bit, annoyed at myself for suggesting that Finnick do something that cause a mess. I had no idea about how to make a bed, I had staff for that.

"Yeah sure blame someone else…" Monica moaned, the girls now ganging up on me even though the room being a mess was a benefit to them.

"Oh please… If the room wasn't a mess then the two of you wouldn't be watching dirty dancing would you?" I asked, whist turning my back to them so I could smirk freely without my sister saying something degrading.

"Yeah…" Was the response I was given before the two girls dived back into the world of Patrick Swayze and the woman whose name I couldn't remember, going back into watching the ultimate chic flick since the dawn of time.

It took me a while to get the room back in ship shape, profiteroles safely in the fridge draw, though I managed, making both beds look fairly neat considering I had just popped my bed making cherry. Whilst I had been working up a sweat, my sister and Monica had been going through the mixed emotions that the chic flick brought to them. Thankfully they hadn't actually cried… Yet.

"Hey faggots… Oh…" Came from the doorway as I spun around, a rather attractive blonde girl coming into my line of sight. It was the one who I believed was called Glimmer, though I didn't know if it was a nickname or whether it was her real name. Frankly I would be more surprised if it was a nickname.

"Where's Cato and Marvel?" She then demanded from me, looking at me with a pair of eyes like twin sapphires, to which I shrugged and answered.

"I don't know, I haven't seen either for ages, I've just been cleaning the room whilst they watch dirty dancing…" I confirmed to her, watching her expression change swiftly at the mention of dirty dancing, from angry to curious and happy.

She wandered deeper into the room, turning to glance at the television, her curly blonde locks swaying in the breeze as she strutted, each step an over-exaggerated mince, before she near deafened me with a scream.

"Clove!" She wailed, mincing quickly over to the sofa that was unoccupied and sitting down instantly, as if watching the film would determine the fate of the world. "Come quick!"

The doorway was filled swiftly by Clove, the shortest girl I had seen at the school so far, her jet black hair only adding to her emo-like appearance, with a pair of black skinny jeans and a black t-shirt with 'Slipknot' written firmly on it in what was meant to be blood, with a collection of people dressed like horror villains underneath the band name.

She looked so evil and un-feminine that I could see no possible way to even begin to comprehend that she would watch the film. But I appeared to be wrong. She also made an excited wail and dived down onto the seat next to Glimmer, bringing her knees up to her chest in a childlike manner that completely refracted all previous assumptions I had of her.

"Re-wind it!" She snapped violently, though my sister would have done it regardless, it was the only film that a girl could watch two thousand times without it being boring. I didn't understand that, for it had no action at all. How girls could moan when boys watched the masterpiece that is lord of the rings over and over again yet happily sift through this pile of crap I would never understand, but it would surely be something to do with… Something.

I stood in shock for a few moments, before I moved over to sit on the edge of my bed. I had seen the film before, the only part I liked being the bit with the girl who couldn't sing. I giggled at that.

I was spaced out in limbo for a few moments before another voice knocked me back out of it again, much to my annoyance.

"Clove? What is it? You texted and said it was something important…" Annie began, my thoughts immediately consolidating back to the plane journey that I had taken with her, before I realised that Clove had started rallying the troops and more likely than not this room would be filled with girls. They should be in their dorm, though I wasn't going to say anything. I wanted to keep my testicles.

Annie swiftly joined the mass, sitting between Clove and Glimmer, which took up the remaining space for someone to sit in, which made me feel a little more comfortable in the belief that nobody else could join them in their journey to chic flick heaven. Once again I was proved wrong.

Cashmire, Claire and West stumbled in next, West being dragged around like a ragdoll by Claire. They took a glance at me, then at the others watching television, where Claire and Cashmire's faces lit up considerably, both of them moving over to the area of seating, where Cashmire squeezed in-between the other two. Claire on the other hand, West in tow, moved to sit on the floor in front of the sofa with the people I actually knew sitting on it. It was bizarre to think that they were in my room when they didn't actually know anything about me. Kind of rude really.

I sat and simply contemplated about Finnick for a while, not bothering to stress myself out with the hole Elle scenario anymore. I wondered how things were going to end up, and I couldn't help but fantasise about a nice spring wedding that we would have in a rural English castle, that was until I realised how sappy I was getting over a hug and quickly snapped out of it.

"Hey people what's going down in… What the fuck?" Cato announced, which I was glad for, snapping my head up as he walked into the room, Marvel and Finnick behind him. I sighed with relief that I had some company at last, someone to talk to as the film dragged on and on.

"Shut the fuck up Cato." Clove snapped, her eyes not leaving the television screen at any point, simply making a rude and unnecessary gesture at him, her middle finger sticking up into the air like some form of monument.

Cato simply shrugged and wandered over to his own bed, Marvel following him closely like a small dog awaiting his food. My eyes, though I tried to resist, immediately homed on to Finnick, hopefulness striking through my face like a stain on a white t-shirt; it was painfully obvious that I was becoming desperate and clingy, but he didn't seem to mind.

He wandered over to me slowly, sheading in his shirt whilst doing so as if he were a catwalk stripper, the turquoise fabric slipping through his finger with silken grace. He was teasing me and he was enjoying it. I didn't know whether that was a good or bad think, but luckily I didn't care, because it was mere seconds before he was next to me, where I could finally indulge in the richness of his lips again.

The film continued to play, though Cato and Marvel were snogging through it, myself and Finnick engaging in a slightly lighter method of kissing, though it was still kissing regardless. We could probably have engaged in something even less savoury than the kissing, I expected that even a mild orgy would have gone unnoticed by the girls. And west, but it's not like I would care if he saw.

Needless to say, we did not have an orgy, rather shared the profiteroles between the four of us, all having our faces covered in cream by the end on account of Cato's idea to try and share one with Marvel, Finnick then doing the same with me, which ended in utter disaster.

But I was with Finnick and I was happy, even with the Dirty Dancing troupe in the room too, it was fine, because I had him. And no way was he ever going to lose me without a fight.

* * *

_**So i hope it is okay and as usual i would love to hear your thoughts and feelings on what is going on and what you want to happen next. **_

_**This is more important than ever at the moment because i need to fill in the fluff before i hit the next milestone, which is totally planned out, but i need to know what people want to see more of, whether that be Glimmer, Clove, Miss Coolidge, Amy or whoever, let me know and i will do it!**_

_**Also- Character clash- Heroes: Nathan/ Hunger games: Caesar are played by the same actor, just thought that was fun.**_

_**Okay, have a good day and review and y'know, love you all my fantastic people who read and review my work who make my life so much better. :D**_

_**I'll try and update sooner next time ;) **_

_**xxxxxxxxxxx **_


	10. A Clear and Present Danger

_**Hello peeps.**_

_**I will have a short moan, because i do put a lot of effort into this, and it kinda feels like people don't appreciated it.**_

_**The last chapter had three reviews... Which kinda sucks.**_

_**Though my three reviewers are gods and i love them forever, all leaving good points.**_

_**Now you non reviewers... **_

_**Is it so hard to say a few words to me on what you think?**_

_**You could just say something you liked, or something you didn't or someone you want to see more of or something you want to happen, Because believe me, i will listen to your opinions.**_

_**People may not like this chapter with what happens in it, but i didn't have a whole lot of ideas and i thought that it did kinda fit in with the story. Btw i do know how this story 'ends' and all of the characters have their points and things. There is a reason to almost every character, and the little things that happen reflect on action that happens later.**_

_**But anyway... We have this now, which is kind of a fluffy chapter, a little bit more info and a few new dimensions to go in, you may hate it but hopefully if you do you can all review and tell me why and then i can re-do the chapter if that is the general wish :P**_

_**Anyway, please review and enjoy. **_

_***Warning, things are about to get raunchy***_

* * *

**A Clear and Present Danger**

**Panem School for the gifted and talented, Nebraska, USA**

_Everybody line up!_

_The show is about to start!_

_Places!_

_The show is about to start!_

I groaned, flopping over in my bed in a way that would not have been in the least bit attractive, moving my hand out to clumsily reach for my phone, which was doubling as my alarm clock for the moment, not having a suitable alarm clock that would fit on a table that size. I swiped at it, feeling the sunlight against my skin in a way that told me opening my eyes would be a big mistake.

I felt my fingers collide with the cold side of my phone, before I clumsily knocked it to the floor, where it bounced softly. I sighed a quick breath of happiness that it hadn't made the sickening crunch that indicated the screen was cracked which would lead to me not having a phone for god knows how long. The music continued to blare however, not that I had the effort to look for it now, simply flopping backwards and thrusting my face into Finnick's pillow, which I had managed to swap with my own when we walked back to his room.

The original plan was that I was going to sleep in his bed with him, Cato feeling too tired to want to have to deal with us. Peeta however, had been asleep, and as much as the boy seemed to hate me, I didn't want to give him a valid reason, so I swapped the pillows, gave Finnick a peck goodnight, before I left, much to his annoyance.

"What the fuck dude…" I heard Cato grumble, as I happily breathed in Finnick's scent, which was amazing. I looked over at Cato, who was looking at me with a pair of dark eyes, glaring at me rather aggressively from his side of the room.

"Sorry… Y'know, no harm in being prompt…" I mumbled, pouting a little as his face lightened a fraction, his lips moving from a sneer, to a fairly neutral expression.

He sat up on his bed, moving his pillow so that it was against the wall, where he was able to gain a comfortable position, before he cracked his neck loudly, in a manner that made me cringe.

"Cay-toe!" I exaggerated, dragging out both syllables so that he could be aware of my discomfort with his odd crunches that his neck produced. He shrugged lightly, a smirk ghosting his face as his grey eyes flicked over to myself.

"Sorry bro." He shrugged, making me giggled slightly, moving over so that I was wrapped up in the duvet, my naked body concealed by the sheet draped heavily over my form.

"That's fine enough." I mumbled back, propping my head up on my arms, kicking my legs out from the ensnaring duvet and flailing them about softly, an action that probably resembled flirting. I hadn't intended to flirt with him, but his reaction was quite nice, his head tilting to the side slightly, boasting his muscular jaw that needed to be decorated with butterfly kisses from me.

I froze.

Marvel was definitely meant to be my friend, but here I was flirting with Cato, who was… Something to him. I knew that they weren't dating, so I wasn't really breaking them up as such, but I knew it wasn't my place to flirt with him. His reactions were drawing me on however, the gentle rubbing of my feet together appearing to stir him on in some way. I guessed that he had a foot fetish, it was either that or he was really easy to turn on. Though who was I to judge? My cock had been hard since I thought about kissing his jaw.

My cock twanged as his tongue flicked out across his lips, the soft pink muscle making my cock dribble with pre-cum, discovered by my slight shuffle that rubbed the moistness into my belly.

"At least that fucking music is off now… Just listening to you breathing is pretty loud though, I really think we need to find a way to shut you up..." Cato smirked, his obvious flirtation making my cock twinge harder, my eyes screwing up slightly as I felt a soft blush decorate my cheeks. I was way too easy to turn on.

Suddenly my eyes widened, and I looked down at my phone, knowing that I had about two seconds before my life was destroyed by the 'you are the music in me reprise' from high school musical two. It was still set to ensure I turned the alarm off of a morning, I really hadn't taken this situation as a possibility.

I lunged down to grab the phone, throwing the duvet off and snatching the device up, standing at my full height as it blared out, Ashley Tisdale's voice making me cringe violently, my finger bring the music to a well-deserved stop.

I sighed, placing my phone on the bedside table and sitting myself back down on the bed, sighing as I let my gaze return to Cato's features, which were glued on a location down from me. I gasped as I realised that he could see my cock clearly, in all of its dripping glory, which made me bite my lip, lunging for my duvet to conceal my manliness.

"Don't… You've got a nice cock. You're bigger than Marvel y'know." Cato spoke though his prominent smirk, which was now practically spread from ear to ear. "You getting hard over me kiddo? Is big bad Cato making your virgin cock hurt?"

I bit down on my lip hard. It was as if the boy could read my thoughts, my cock was hurting from what I guessed was having too much blood in it… It was as if I was so aroused that my cock was demanding a release, which was another issue with boarding school, no privacy. I was far too classy to have a fap in a toilet cubicle; that was just scummy.

"M-morning glory…" I mumbled, trying to keep my dignity and sanity intact from what would wind up in my cock bursting from the amount of blood in it, maybe making me faint from the lack of blood in my head.

"Same." He returned with a wink, adjusting himself so that he was no longer covered, and now stood in front of me, his cock prominent in my vision.

It was as if Cato's ego was in his cock. So basically he looked like a horse. I guessed nine inches at the off, though it was hard to tell, because all I could do was stare, before wondering how Marvel was able to walk. It was thick and long… It felt so wrong and dirty to be standing in his naked presence, it was as if I was cheating on Finnick and breaking my friendship with Marvel, when in reality it was neither.

I was snapped back into reality by a muscular arm draping around my body, before a hard heat pressed up against my side. I turned my head to the side to come face to face with Cato, his grey eyes almost black with hormones, which I suspected mine were also adrift with.

"Fucking Brittish twink." Cato mumbled, before bringing a large hand to the back of my head and kissing me roughly, his lips not feathery and soft as Finnick's had been, simply rough and strong, much like the boy himself.

Immediately a tongue brushed against my lower lip, though I didn't know why, it was prodding as if it wanted me to open my mouth, though I didn't know if I wanted to. I didn't really know anything other than the fact Cato was pressed up against me, and his cock was huge.

Suddenly I felt the duvet covering me get removed, making me feel very exposed and vulnerable, before a hand crashed around my length firmly. I gasped violently, never having felt pleasure so strong in my life before, which is when Cato's tongue arrived in my mouth, hungrily exploring inside my warm, wet cavern.

I didn't know what I was meant to do about it, because I was pretty sure that my brain, amongst other major organs, had moved into my cock, where Cato's unmoving hand stood strong and firm. I only then realised that my hips were bucking into him slightly, and I was effectively fucking myself on his hand. I forced myself to stop, knowing that I would be known as an easy person if I didn't do something about this situation.

It was impossible to stop this moment now, not that I even wanted too, the pleasure that I was in was too exquisite to ignore. Instead I moved my tongue out to reach into his mouth, the two wet muscles colliding like a pair of flailing fish as I cautiously, but firmly, moved my hand out towards his body, where it brushed against his member fairly clumsily.

He groaned into my mouth, which simply stirred me on even more, making me slide my hand around his solid cock gently, my fingers not reaching the whole way around the monster. I stroked up and down softly, which definitely was the right thing to do, bringing a moan from him and causing his teeth to bite my bottom lip gently.

We pulled away for a second, catching our breath, as I considered giving him a blow job, knowing that it was sure to get a pretty satisfying reaction, though I didn't have the chance, because I was off my bed and in his arms instantly, as he lifted me off of my feet, positioning us so that our cocks were touching, which was causing a deadly tease of friction.

I wrapped my legs tightly around his waist, which brought our members together, making mine look feeble in comparison to his, though I knew it must have been big enough for what Cato wanted. My arms encircled his neck as I felt my back collide with something solid, which I didn't care to identify, knowing that it would only increase the friction between us, which was insane.

"You're- such- a- fucking- hot- sexy- twink. –Want- to- see- you- cum- for- me." Cato gasped between kisses, turning me on even more than I was already, though didn't even think that was possible.

"Please- make- me- …" I started, before my last word was drowned out by a moan that would put most prostitutes to shame, Cato's large hand enclosing around both of our cocks, tossing us both of at such a speed that I thought I was going to die.

I couldn't think of much. All I knew was that Cato was tossing me off, and I had never been touched _there_ before by anyone other than myself, and my sister once, but that was a total accident. There also had probably been a few groping's on Finnick's half, but I couldn't think of him. Not when Cato was sweaty and hot against me.

I was unbearably close, and I knew I would cum before he did, but I didn't care, because I was in such unbearable ecstasy that I couldn't imagine anything more pleasurable, though I knew what would be. Cato fucking me.

It was that thought that brought me over the edge, my lips exploding with a steam of curses, followed by a demonically loud moan that would surely be heard across campus, my mouth flying open as my eyes scrunched shut with an unnatural tightness, my cock shooting out two weeks' worth of cum onto Cato and I's bodies.

"Fuck!" Cato bellowed, his voice deeper that I had heard it before as his body contracted more violently that any orgasm could achieve, a deeply arousing tingle flowing through my entire body, as I felt warm splatters hit me, higher up than I expected a cock to be able to shoot.

Suddenly the sky echoed by a dreadfully loud clap of thunder, a thunderbolt that would surely win the record for the most auditory ever, as I felt my orgasm blow over me, my lungs screaming for a little more air than I could actually achieve.

The two of us flopped down messily on the floor, both of us sporting a large amount of slowly cooling seaman on our stomachs.

I flopped my head back on the wall roughly, my eyes closed and my brain trying to process what I had just done, which I wasn't entirely sure about. I tried to think about what had just happened, but my lips were assaulted by a flurry of butterfly kisses from Cato, who I expected was a little happy.

"That was the best orgasm ever. I swear to god you have a fucking generator in your cock or something because I'm pretty sure I just got electrocuted." He panted, his eyes grey and foggy. I realised that the lightning was probably a side effect of my orgasm, though the tingle that seemed to run through the both of us was something I didn't have any idea about, because as far as I knew I had never produced electricity.

Then it hit me that he had just told me that I had just given him the best orgasm ever, which made me beam with pride, though it was probably more than that considering I had just blown my brains out of my cock.

"You've got jizz on your face…" He mumbled, his mouth making a genuine smile as he pointed to an area just above my lip. I flicked my tongue out and licked it off, the bitter taste catching me off guard slightly, though it was defiantly not a nasty taste.

"Nasty…" Cato chuckled, before he hoisted be up in his arms. "C'mon, you need a fucking good shower. And I am totally stealing some of that shampoo you have that made Marvel's hair smell like something sexy as fuck."

It then hit me that our little event was meaningless, that he was still with Marvel in that sexual, friends with benefits, way that they had together.

"Shit… I just need to say that this was just a bloody good orgasm… This don't mean we're like dating and shit now… I don't date… Though fuck it you are on my friends with benefits list. I recon you and Marvel would look hot foolin' around together…" He fantasized, to which I couldn't find the strength to make any form of argument, even leaving the knowledge of what we had just done behind us.

"Sure. Friends with ben's. Sound's great." I returned, disappointed not being the right word to choose to express my emotions, because I had to admit, that I had just had more fun than ever. I then realised that Cato would tell Marvel, who might be a bit jealous and pissed with me. I then realised that he would tell Finnick, who would be overjoyed and want to experience some 'lightning loving' as I decided to dub it, for himself.

I sighed, before I realised that the two of us were both naked in the corridor, him carrying me through it bridal style, which made someone, the black guy, who was walking towards us say something particularly sour.

"You two fucking queers need to shut the fuck up in future. And by the way your other slut is crying and slitting his wrists now after hearing that. You should hurry up." He droned, his accent screaming south African , before I realised Cato was now running to the toilets, obviously worried at the concept that Marvel was in trouble. However Cato didn't let me go, which to me, in my twisted little head, meant he cared for me in some way… That was a nice feeling. I couldn't wait to be fought over…

* * *

"Marvel!" Cato called pushing the bathroom door open with his back, still carrying me bridal style, though I noted that it was with less care than it had been before he had found out Marvel was in trouble, he hit my head on the door frame on the way in.

The boy in question jumped a few feet as Cato shouted at him, standing in a towel with a toothbrush in his mouth, looking at Cato as if he was insane, before his gaze swapped to me, bringing a raised eyebrow into the equation.

Cato put me down, not quite as gently as he could have, as he ran over to Marvel and gripped him tightly in his arms, which made the younger boy squeal lightly, squirming against Cato's grip.

"Fuck! You're getting cum on me!" He informed the bigger boy, through the toothbrush in his mouth, pulling away and looking down at his belly, which was indeed now covered with a sticky looking sheen.

"What the… Thresh said…" Cato began, looking at Marvel with confusion, to which the younger boy pouted. Marvel didn't seem upset that Cato and I had done… Things… It was possible that he didn't care, but it wasn't likely.

"Thresh is full of shit. That's why he's black." Marvel said lightly as he shrugged, spitting the foam from his mouth into the sink as he observed the mess on his chest. I winced slightly at the racist remark, though I guessed that it was well deserved to this particular boy, and Marvel was from the south… They were racist more than the north I think…

"Damn…" Cato mumbled, looking at the floor sheepishly, before I noticed Marvels gaze drift to me, his eyes trailing up and down my naked body in a way that would have given me an erection had I not just exploded.

"I've never heard Cato orgasm so loud… It sounded like lightning…" Marvel giggled through a smirk, looking at me with a soft nod, before turning to the older boy, who was looking at the floor again, maybe ashamed or embarrassed.

"No I'm pretty sure that that was actually thunder, weird coincidence or some weird wank phenomenon." I informed him, smiling softly and moving towards the shower. "Now if you will excuse me I am covered in slowly drying sperm and I wish to rid myself of it before Finnick walks in and gets all jealous."

"Oh Finnick knows. We all heard your orgasm noise, myself, Finnick, Peeta, Thresh, Gale, that ugly boy, the one who hangs around with you, and Gloss. Finnick went upstairs to tell everyone."

"Amy's gonna kill me…" I breathed to myself, turning the shower on to full power and hitting my head against the wall as Cato and Marvel plodded into the showers, moving into the space next to me.

"I need another shower now thanks to you and your jizz." Marvel moaned, poking Cato in the arm, receiving a light shove from the older boy, who was looking at me.

"Zeph where's your shampoo?" He questioned, which made me hit my head again, remembering that it was all in my cupboard, the key to which was in my room.

"In my Cupboard…" I returned, which made him shrug and walk towards it. "You need the key, on my bedside table." I shouted after him, which brought some sort of grunt, before the unmistakable sound of the door shutting sounded. We were along.

"Shit I am so sorry! I have no idea what came over me…" I started, looking at Marvel, who simply giggled, looking at me and brushing his fringe from his face.

"Don't worry about it. He does it with loads of people. I'd rather he spend time with you than Finnick or Glimmer or Clove… I like you. You're decent." He told me, smiling as his eyes once again scanned my body. "And you clearly know how to make a guy happy." He finished with a wink.

A confused look crossed my features, before I questioned him. "What do you mean? I thought you liked Cato?" I asked, completely baffled by his reaction, which was unexpected to say the least.

"I do. I really really like him… Maybe even more…" He blushed and continued quickly "But I know he wants sex and not a relationship… If I get clingy with him and demand exclusivity he'll tell me to shove off and then where will I be? It's fine that he does stuff with other people… I mean it hurts when I think about him with someone else… But I know how he is… A horny bastard, especially in the mornings. He is also impossible to say no to." Marvel drawled, tripping over his words a little, maybe confused about the situation himself.

"What?" I returned blankly, looking at him with a raised eyebrow that brought me a giggle, a sigh, and a little bit more information.

"Basically. I love him. I want him happy. I have a pretty good thing going on with him because we are slightly more than friends with benefits, but I still get jealous when Glimmer flirts with him, or Clove and him go to have sex somewhere… Surprisingly Finnick isn't so bad."

"And what about him having a wank with me?" I questioned, knowing that I needed to find out the answer to the inevitable question. Hormones in the mornings were a demonic curse.

He looked down for a second, seemingly in thought, contemplating what it made him feel, before his gaze returned to my eyes, a small smile on his features.

"I'm gonna be honest… I don't like the idea, I'm jealous… But it turns me on." He shrugged, looking at his feet in embarrassment.

"I probably won't do it again anyway… Unless I have another horny morning… But I don't really know how to take that." I returned softly, looking at the top of his head, as he was still peering at the floor.

"You're British! That is like one of the highest levels of hotness ever." He explained, looking at me with a strange smile, that was somewhere between horny and constipated. "How about you only do stuff with him if I am in the room too…" He mumbled, something which I could not help but laugh at.

"You're adorable." I announced, moving my hand out to ruffle his hair which was black and wet from the shower, though it still felt soft between my fingers. Sort of.

"Seriously though… I have never heard Cato orgasm that loud… What the hell did you do with him to make him sound like that?" He asked, which thankfully, I didn't need to lie about, because Cato returned, making lots of noise.

"Tell you later." I mumbled quickly, going back to my shower as I mulled over the information I had gained so far from the day.

Cato thinks I am sexy… Cato thinks I would look hot if I was fooling around with Marvel… Cato fools around with lots of people… Marvel really likes Cato… Marvel thinks I am decent… I am officially allowed to have an threesome with the two of them. Who said boarding school didn't have its perks. Me. Because I had to deal with explaining this all to my sister. I wouldn't get through the day without being pounced on by her…

* * *

"Hello. My name is Tracy Stauss. I'm here to teach you drama, physical theatre to be more precise. Now, I would like you to find a partner and get into a space." The woman instructed, another teacher to give her first name, though I expected she was on shagging terms from the looks some of the boys were giving her. Finnick and Cato to say the least. I didn't realise Cato was a such slut as well…

I imagined that Finnick would be my partner, but surprisingly, I didn't get that far, because an arm encircled my waist and dragged me backwards, almost giving me a heart attack. I span around to face a beautiful girl, who was a little shorter than me, looking at me with a massive pout. Her hair was golden and wavy, and I soon realised, from the look of her long eyelashes and full, red lips, that this was Glimmer, another slut to be chalked up on that tally.

"I heard that you and…" She started, immediately suppressing me with a fairly soft, neutral tone of voice, though I expected to hear a shrieking high pitched miasma of vocal cord insanity. I was pleasantly surprised.

"Yeah yeah Cato and I had a thing…" I finished for her, knowing where the conversation was heading. Not an untouched topic for the day so far.

"I was actually going to say that I heard that you and Finnick were getting close." She smirked back, which again pleasantly surprised me.

"Yeah kinda… I mean… I think he likes me..." I started, before I was interrupted by the blonde, who looked to be telling the truth.

"Trust me. He doesn't. You sleep with Cato. He will come around every now and then and you get a good fuck. You sleep with Finnick, you have the best shag of your life, then he tosses you back to the floor and moves on."  
I made to interrupt her, but she lifted a palm to me, which clearly indicated that she was not yet done with her monologue.

"You get with Cato, he tells you what he feels, he tells you the truth, he doesn't hurt. You get with Finnick, he lies, he lies, he lies, he breaks your heart. Trust me when I say don't get involved. I don't give out advice much but there you go. He is a danger and you'd do best to ignore him." She finished, throwing an over exaggerated hair flick for added effect to her advice.

I looked at her dumbly, and what she said had made perfect sense. Cato had made it clear that we were not anything more than friends with benefits, whilst Finnick had been much more affectionate. For some reason however, I refused to believe her. I told myself that Finnick wouldn't hurt me. Could I be sure? No. That was always the danger of life.

"But let's move on to Cato and you having a wank today. What happened there?" She asked nonchalantly, as if it were the most causal thing to say in a conversation.

"Erm… We were flirting when we woke up and he came on to me… Not much more than that." I mumbled, still a little unsure about whether I liked everyone knowing about my sex life. Sure the attention was good… But how long would it take for someone to add two and two and work out that I had a power… I guessed not long.

"How did you make him scream like that though? I have given him amazing sex more times than I can count, but he is usually more of a grunter… I have never heard him make that noise before." She went on to question, the uncomfortable nature of the conversation making me blush slightly.

"Erm… English trick…" I mumbled, making her grunt in disappointment. Wasn't Cato meant to be the grunter?

"If you want to get into the Careers then you will tell me. You have Gloss and Clove against you…" She stated, which damn near knocked me off of my feet. Was someone trying to get me into the careers.

She obviously noticed my shock, because she explained it. "Marvel said he thinks you would be a good addition. Cato backed him. Gloss and Clove said no…" She paused, smirking slightly. "Finnick said he thinks it would be better if we waited… It's like he doesn't want to get too close to you…"

"Who says I want to be in the careers?" I questioned, which made her giggle and lightly stroke my arm, moving into my personal space.

"Trust me… You want to get the benefits that being a career gives you… Especially the newest one… So you need to join by the end of next month… We're getting a present."

I immediately knew what that was. The serum. That on its own made my mind up for me. I had no idea what would happen if I took a serum that gave people abilities. It could do anything, it could make me so much stronger, it could kill me. I had no idea how I would react to it, but I knew that it would be something of a bad idea…

Then another dilemma appeared, if Marvel managed to get me a place in the careers, I would have to decline it, and god knows what that would make him think about me. I needed to decide between my friendship with Marvel, and my life…

The obvious choice was undoubtedly the right one here.

"Oh my god she is such a freak!" Glimmer squealed from my side, which made my head snap around, immediately spotting the issue.

Katniss, my sister's roommate, was bent over in a full contortion, her body flexed in a manner that would probably make an Olympic gymnast jealous. That didn't make her a freak in my eyes. It was actually kinda cool.

I noticed Monica walk towards the girl, probably having some form of comment to make, as she always did, but instead, she moved down to the floor, moving into a contortion that was exactly the same. Her back flexed perfectly upwards in a perfect ark.

"That's pathetic, try doing this." An icy, yet loud voice echoed out, making my head snap into the other direction, looking at Clove, who broke into a collection of flips and summersaults that would make a gymnast even more jealous. She was like a ninja.

Monica stood back up, and to everyone's utter surprise, broke into the same collection of summersaults, a mirror image of Clove, utter perfect copy. I clapped lightly, not wanting to be rude as it seemed that I was the only person in the class who really knew her, other than my sister, who she was partnered with.

"I bet you couldn't make Cato orgasm the same way Zephyr did! And get lightning to strike at the same time" Finnick suddenly announced, which make my face immediately move towards the ground, looking down being the best way of pretending that I couldn't hear all of the laughter that was in the room suddenly. I needed to think of a smart comeback and everything would be good as gold… But surprisingly, I didn't need to. Someone did it for me. Someone I did not expect to ever defend me like that.

"Finnick just because you are infatuated with my brother does not mean he is going to give you the same treatment. Cato is clearly much luckier than you." My sister stated, looking rather happy at being able to knock Finnick down a peg or two in the process.

All eyes were drifting between Finnick and myself, before he took a step towards me. I looked up at him as he closed the gap between up and slid his hands down my back so that they rested on my arse.

"You'll admit to everyone that you love me the most won't you." He breathed huskily, before biting down on my earlobe, dragging a light moan from me, which made me blush. I liked the attention to an extent, other than the fact I was about to get a boner in front of my drama class, my really tight chino's not helping the situation at all.

A heavy shudder then rocked the building, the district nine building to be exact, a fair walk from district one to say the least. It felt like an earthquake but I knew it wasn't… I knew exactly what it was. People fell to the floor, myself and Finnick being two of them, him landing on me and getting a shove away.

I looked over at my sister, who had a pair of clenched fists and a flat expression, which quickly disappeared, her eyes connecting with mine for a second, before she gave a slight nod.

"Great. Another fucking mystery." I breathed, helping Glimmer to her feet as Miss Stauss hushed people and walked around fairly franticly in her ten inch bitch heels.

* * *

_Lady Coin briskly paced up and down her office, sure that the two out of place phenomena that had occurred that day were ability related. The lightning strike and the earthquake. Elle Bishop had been sent out on a task with gathering intelligence, the teaching staff on standby for any odd occurrences. _

_The shrill ringing of the phone caught her off guard, wandering over towards it swiftly, swooping down and taking it off of the receiver with haste. _

"_Do you have any…" Alma began, swiftly cutting to the point and ignoring all formalities, too impatient to ask how people's days have been._

"_Alma. It's me." _

_She froze, recognising the voice instantly. "Angela…" She breathed, knowledge swiftly coming forwards to associate with the person. "Why are you breaking radio silence? Do you know how dangerous this could be?" _

"_Mr Parkman is dead."_

_Alma froze again, before briskly recovering. "One of us or one of them?"_

"_One of them. He took four bullets to the chest."_

_She sighed miserably, before continuing. "Did he recover anything useful?"_

"_His last words were, 'save the cheerleader, save the world'."_

"_Was he pissed?" She snapped in return, clearly unhappy that the Intel was not laid out on a platter._

"_How is the serum developing?"_

"_Well. It will be ready next month." _

"_And do we have any naturals in the school."_

"_Yes. So far four have been confirmed. We used impenetrable skin for the serum, he is being buried as we speak. We also have a confirmed __Omnilingualism__. And two unconfirmed. Weather control and Terakinesis, both of which seem to have high control over their powers."_

"_This is good news…" A short burst of static interrupted the conversation, before the voice returned. "I need to leave. But Alma. I fear that Pandora's Box has been opened."_

_The phone went dead and Alma slammed it back on the receiver, disturbed by the news she had been given. _

_The phone let out a shrill ring again, hastily and aggressively picked up by Lady Coin._

"_What…"_

"_I may have a confirmed on weather control." _

_Alma's mouth pursed into a smile. "Who?"_

"_Zephyr Rocheford."_

* * *

_**Okay i hope you liked it, please review and maybe show a little apreciation for my time...**  
_

_**I don't mean to sound like a needy bitch but i am so deal with it :P**_

_**Okay.**_

_**A little cliffhanger their.**_

_**(The rest of the day will be next chapter)**_

_**Thank you for reading. **_

_**(If you think my spelling is off that is because i am English and my spelling is in English English rather than American English.)**_

_**R&R**_


	11. IMPORTANT NOTE

_**People, i am sad to say that this version of the story is dead.**_

_**I have just got too many plot holes and too many dead ends, i rushed into the story only thinking about key scenes and not actually how to get to them. **_

_**But... I will be re-writing it... I am currently re-writing it... Like as you read this i have the new first chapter being written...**_

_**I don't know when it will be ready but hopefully soon and i will post the first chapter here to see what you think, then i will publish it as a new fanfic.**_

_**So if any requests are wanted in the new version, tell me soon, because i NEED to know all of the flaws you can find so that i wont make them again. :)**_

_**xxxx**_

_**Thank you readers...**_

_**And especially the one and only JaymeDray, who is the most amazing person and author on this planet, she inspired me to start the story and she has inspired me to restart it.**_

_**Hope you have had a nice christmas and hope there is a happy new year!**_

_**xxxx**_


	12. Remake preview

_**Hey people, this is the first chapter of the remake... This ISN'T fanfiction so the characters are all mine... But shush and we won't tell :P**_

_**This is a trial to see if people like it or not, so don't expect regular updates, i need reviews and wishes... :P**_

**The College of Seior**

**Teen Zephyr Rocheford finds himself being sent to the College of Seiðr after being headhunted by the school. However, with a desperate secret to hide, the school is the last place he wants to be. With a possessive roommate, an abused friend, a handsome pervert and a pair of giggling and invasive girls to keep him company, all seems lost. But is he the only one keeping secrets? Or does everyone else have something to hide?**

**_Chapter one_**

**_TS-19_**

I jumped violently, my blissful slumber disturbed by something which I was planning on chasing around the school and slowly disembowelling with the first sharp object that I was able to get a hold of, likely the needle my druggie roommate kept nearby in case he needed a fix of speed or heroin in the night. My eyes flew open and focussed on the ceiling, the first thing that came into my vision, which made me shut my eyes tightly and sigh with a great relief.

I wasn't at my school; I was in my safe haven, home. The vivid orange silk of my bed sheets slowly slid of off my lightly muscled torso as I moved to sit up, my hand moving up to cover up the manliest noise that had ever passed my lips, a grunt, my eyes stirring slightly. I had had the best night sleep in four days, which doesn't seem like much, but four restless nights in a room with a drug addict, a fat boy, and a Welshman… Let's just say I'm lucky that I'm clean, in one piece, and don't have lice.

My alarm was blaring loudly, echoing 'Proud' by Heather Small into the room with me, immediately giving me an image of Miranda in my head to get going with the day. With the concept that I had about five hours left before I would need to head off to Stansted airport to go to my new school, in America this time no less, I confirmed with myself that I had plenty of time to do things I liked, namely sunbathing.

Despite my longing to lounge and listen to Heather asking me 'what have I done today to make me feel proud' I knew in my heart that it could never last. I had the knowledge that I only had about four minutes and ten seconds before the 'You are the music in me, reprise' from high school musical would come on, and potentially destroy my life. Ashleigh Tisdale wasn't even okay in small doses, she was just lethal.

So I rolled across the large bed and reached out with my hand to turn the alarm outputting machine off, lest I were to lose track of time and let it dissolve into something unsavoury, before rolling back over and lying on my back, taking in the luxurious softness beneath me. I let myself lounge in my exquisite bed for a moment longer, taking in the pure luxury of the silk sheets and pillows, smiling at the comfort, something that was a definite improvement from the beds at the school; I only went in my bed in my onesie and I only used my onesie because I didn't have a hazmat suit available. The beds may as well have been toxic waste disposal grounds. In fact they probably were.

Banishing the thoughts, I hoisted myself out of the bed, sitting up and taking a glance around the room, the vivid orange splashes of colour of it generally assisting me to start the day, the morning sky encouraging greatly as well, the orange and yellow fusion making me long to get outside.

My body sighed at my movement, which was a slow clamber to my feet, before I dissolved into a graceful waltz across my bedroom to my bathroom in all my glory, due to the fact I found it utterly incomprehensible to sleep with any form of clothing on. The idea seemed appalling.

I wandered across the thick white carpets and approached the wooden door to my en-suite, stepping through the hard wood with ease, the thick, solid substance dragging through my skin in a way that reminded me slightly of a sieve, something that used to bring me copious amounts of discomfort, though over time it had been reduced.

This 'talent' that I possessed, the ability to walk through solid objects without any issue, not to mention invisibility when I wanted it, was certainly an odd thing. I had discovered it when I was younger, thirteen at the time, a few weeks after I had suffered a collection of excruciating cramps and migraines and muscle spasms which I could only assume were part of some form of transformation inside of me.

I had been in the family drawing room, dancing aimlessly to an Evanescence track which I had chosen for my dance 'exam' that I had to go through to advance to the next level in the dance 'academy' that I went to of a Tuesday evening. I was home schooled at this point so it wasn't hard to find time to do things like that, in fact it was a relief.

I remembered being so proud about being able to accomplish three pirouettes in a row, which seems inferior compared to the thirteen I can go through with now, that I attempted to do a front flip. I hadn't thought it through however, and as I attempted a landing, the rug on the wooden floor slipped and I fell straight down.

The fire poker was the thing I was going to hit; it was going to land in my forehead and impale my brains, but it didn't. I should have smashed my head on the granite hearth, broke my skull to pieces, but I didn't. I fell through them, my head out of phase with everything else there was.

Of course, I knew that I needed to keep it hidden, watching 'Heroes' had taught me that much, and I did. I hid it from my parents… My tutor… My friends. Everyone, because I didn't want to be labelled as… As a freak.

I banished the macabre thoughts with a smile at being able to phase through a door without shuddering, my latest accomplishment, my feet shuffling on the cold floor with impatience at my contemplation. Glancing around my bathroom, I realised how large it really was, the feeble cupboard I was supposed to share with four other boys back at the school barely a tenth of this space. A double sink with a large mirror encased one wall, with a toilet situated opposite it, on a jutting out wall used to separate the toilet from the large marble tub that I could have choreographed a synchronised swimming routine in. Though I hardly needed too, my house had an indoor swimming pool which I frequented regularly.

Then there was my shower, a large area encased in glass bricks and beautiful mosaics. A brilliant alcove in which I could place my various lotions and balms in on one of the walls, almost overflowing with various bottles of conditioner and shampoo.

With a short sigh I stepped into the walk-in shower, where I turned it on and put my hand under the cascade of water spilling from the shower head, checking that the temperature was right for me. The water was warm enough for my skin, so with a smile I stepped into the water, blood immediately rushing to the surface of my skin at the heat, the water ruthlessly cascading over every inch of bronze.

It was only moments before my whole body was soaked, and my hand instinctively reached out for the bottle of my sixty pound shampoo on the alcove in the glass wall, sixty pounds not being as expensive as I would have liked, but it had to do. It was still more than the 'head and shoulders' that most males seemed to use, probably because the guy in the advert got felt up by women in bikinis, and I needed to pay for its postage and packaging, so it wasn't like it was only sixty pounds…

My short, glossy, dark blonde hair was black from saturation, which was to be expected, being in a shower. I unleashed some of the liquid luxury into my palm before bringing the white shampoo to my hair, rubbing it into my hair, massaging the minerals and cleansing properties into my scalp. I followed the shampoo with an equally pricy bottle of lavish conditioner, my fingers remaining laced into my hair for a while as I removed the traces of filthy private school germs.

I next moved over to the bottle of near overwhelming body scrub, which had a very hefty price tag, something that was not packed to go to any of my new schools. It was in a slender glass bottle that was shaped like a cupid, the liquid inside it as powerful as sulphur and twice as harsh on the senses. I would usually avoid using it as it made my eyes feel like there was broken glass underneath my eyelids and kept my skin tingling for hours afterwards. I used it because it produced the most magnificent glossy effect on my skin afterwards, something I wanted to show off as soon as I could.

Quick enough the shower was finished and I wandered across the condensation covered tiles, naked once again, reaching for my one towel that was not backed up in my bags downstairs, a simple white cotton one that was quickly used to dry my body and hair, before being folded neatly and placed on a heated rack.

I then left the bathroom, heading back to my bedroom, where the only three items of clothing that were not packed up in a bag were hanging in a large walk-in wardrobe. I walked through the archway and immediately my eyes drifted to the full length mirror that was on the inside of it, where I could see myself fully.

It was always my eyes which stood out to me… Two orbs of shining sapphire against a bronzed backdrop caused by a week in Thailand. It wasn't like my body was average, it was better than that, my body fell with light contours of delicate slimness and a softly sculpted muscle mass providing me with the ever so faint outline of six individual abs on my chest. I just thought my eyes looked nicer.

I slipped my hand into a shelf, producing a pair of plain grey boxer shorts, the thin grey waistband holding across my hips tenderly, the material holding my decent member in place, their simplicity hiding the expensive price tag. I then pulled on a pair of white chino trousers, pulling them up my long legs and allowing them to settle on my hips as I pulled a magnificent shirt on. It started black on one side, and white on the other, the two sides stretching out and challenging each other, intertwining the two heavily contrasting colours, but remaining separate.

I then dug through some of my draws until I found a suitable pair of socks to wear, a rather pleasant crocodile themed pair finding their way onto my feet in a snap, before I stood and paced over to my nightstand, where I grasped the coolness of my phone, before moving to the door.

I only ever phased when I was in the comfort of my room, you never knew when someone was watching, especially with god forsaken younger siblings…

* * *

The sun fell upon every inch of my body, my skin dusted with the lightest covering of sweat. The day was perfect. Not a single, lone cloud in the blue sky that stretched for miles around, simply a scorching sun that graced Winsor with its unyielding heat. The wind was also just right, simply whispering, blessing my body with soft feathery kisses of cool relief from the stifling heat. I smiled. It was bliss.

It had occurred to me that it was likely that another shower would be in order before I headed to the airport, but it wasn't essential, my hair was still boasting luxury and my skin kept its glossy texture and shine from the demonic, sulphur-like substance I had applied earlier.

My outfit, which came to the best part of seven-hundred pounds, was discarded on a short table on the decking that my sun lounger was on, me simply lying in the all-together with a pair of three-hundred pound sunglasses on my head and a pendent around my neck. My shirt, trousers, socks and boxers were all folded neatly on the unit.

I was in bliss, and if my mother or father or one of my annoying brothers or overly curious sister decided to come and pester me for whatever reason, they could get an eyeful of my body, I scarcely cared for them. We were all family so we could be mature about the want of an even tan, though it wasn't hard to imagine how wrong I would be.

My mother would become embarrassed and immature, likely giggly. My father would be annoyed that I shaved and kept body hair out of the equation. Both of my brothers would do the classic 'eww' and cover their eyes, and I would be forced to remind them of the occasions when I was forced to bathe them. Unpleasant.

It was during my tangent of thought that I heard a familiar voice ring out my name, to which I scowled and huffed, annoyed at the thought of my privacy invaded, not to mention the invasion that the prying eyes and hands that my younger sister wielded would bring.

"Zephyr…" My sister dragged drawlingly, waltzing onto the jetty that I was currently on, with her usual peppy skip. She was always a little hyperactive, her form laced with curiosity and happiness. She really was the dark horse of the family.

The twin boys took after my father, all sporty, all dirty, all really uncaring of things like fashion or cleanliness. My mother and I were similar, both self-sentient, caring of our appearance and nature, knowing to what people thought of us and capable of serving to the desire of others if need be, a useful skill. My younger sister was… Just the odd one out.

"Amethyst…" I droned back, using her full name just to irritate her. I removed my glasses and rolled over on the sun lounger, squashing some valuable parts but also keeping them away from the scrying gaze of my sister. I looked up, and yes, she had pulled her usual pout, one that signalled she was a little annoyed, but more just trying to get some attention. I looked at her and stuck my tongue out playfully, and she giggled, moving her hands above her head and thrashing her hair about for a few moments, the long, wavy, brown locks shaking, reflecting the light from the sun beautifully, making her hair shimmer with radiance.

"Amy. Amy. Call me Amy. I don't like the stupid name I have. You know that better than anybody." She said, in a false tone of pretend seriousness, though I knew that she wasn't annoyed with me. She knew I was just teasing her. To be fair, I do agree with her. We did have stupid names, but then, our parents didn't exactly have the best names either. Bernadette and René decided that their children would be given names that were elegant and refined.

"At least you can shorten yours. What to you change 'Zephyr' to without sounding like a total moron?" I said, pouting in the same way my sister did, making her giggle slightly, her brilliantly blue eyes sparkling like the brilliant blue of the sky, only a little darker.

For an eleven year old, she was very grown up looking, if she were taller than she was then she would have been able to pass for an adult any time, but she was still only about five foot.

Her growing up had been quick and I knew it. She had been subjected to the trauma of death at the age of about six, when my idiotic brothers had tried to get her playing call of duty, and though it was only a game, at that age she wasn't quite stable enough to deal with it. I found her later that night holding a dead rabbit with a hole in its head.

I had been the one to explain to her about death, and calm her down when she realised that her favourite rabbit, 'Mr Snuggums' would not be getting back up. It gave us a strong bond, and probably made her see me as more of a parental figure that our parents, which was why it was me she came to when she had her first period. Grossed out isn't the word… I think I was deeper scarred by that encounter than she was.

"Are you going away again?" She asked me, making me look down and sigh and her annoying tactics. She had a habit of asking things that she already knew just to make you feel guilty about telling her. 'Are my friends coming over today?', 'No sister, you don't have any friends because you told them all that you stabbed a rabbit.' She was bound to be the sort of girl who would dye her hair black and get one thousand piercings at the first chance.

"Yes and you know I am." I returned, giving her wide puppy eyes a steely glare, before rolling back over to feel the sun kiss my torso again, bored with the conversation and oblivious as to why I rolled over in the first place.

"What is that?" Suddenly was inquired at me, changing the subject for good or ill, and as my eyes looked at my sister's form and followed her pointing arm down to my crotch, I cursed. I then had to cover my mouth out of reflex that the eleven year old was not accustom to hearing the F-word.

Unsure as of how I could talk to an eleven year old girl about my penis, I did the only thing I could think of, and stood up, walking towards the edge of the decking I was on, making a firm dive into the water below me, into the vast lake that the decking edged. The water felt like ice next to my warm skin, and my mouth streamed with bubbles as I drew towards the surface, breaking it like a creature of the sea.

I spluttered out the little water that had invaded my lungs and mouth, my nose accustomed to the feeling of water rushing through it, my ears all but immune to the feeling of being waterlogged. I remained treading water for a few moments, as my eyes drifted back to my sister, who was patiently stood with her hands on her hips and a glint in her eye. I knew that she would get the truth out of me somehow.

"It's a… My… Erm… Penis?" I blushed, finding the adjustment of my soaked and heavy fringe much more interesting than making eye contact with the demonic evil that stood on the decking in the form of a little girl.

"Zephyr Rocheford!" A snappy, yet slightly amused tone erupted from the decking as my eyes snapped to my grandmother, slowly prowling towards me like a predator seeking its prey.

My grandmother was usually chair ridden in the lounge, watching box sets of Downton Abby or The Walking Dead, the latter something she had wandered in on me watching, all but demanding me to take it back to the first episode. I could have sworn that I saw her revelling in the disembowelment of a corpse during episode two.

It took something important for her to move around, even more so to get her outside, but here she was. I wagered that my mother wanted me to get ready, and my gran had offered to come and fetch me.

The relationship they had was a simple one. My gran respecting her daughter and my mother respecting her mother. It wasn't coddling and lovey-dovey, touchy-feely, but it worked.

"Yes…" I barely whispered, not knowing how to handle the situation. Depending on how long she had been present, she could have heard my sister ask, or she could have just heard me shout 'penis' at an eleven year old.

"You need to get your hairless little arse out of that lake and indoors, your mother wants to set off soon and I'll be damned if she gets stuck in traffic." She commanded, and I winced at the 'hairless arse' comment, and prepared myself to an anecdote from her. "Back in my day we didn't have the luxury of shaving, we didn't have the time, the German's were invading…"

She began to drone, which I blanked, reaching out onto the deck and hoisting myself up, padding up to my sun lounger to take the towel from it, wrapping it around my waist to preserve my dignity if nothing else, preparing to sit through a fair half hour of 'war stories' whilst my mother got ready to take me to the airport… Only half an hour though, how bad could that be?

* * *

"Would you like to have a sandwich or something now? It might be a while before you get to eat again?" My mother asked softly, her stilettos clopping on the beige tiles, splashing in the water of the downpour that had decided to pick up oh so suddenly, her umbrella fending off the most of it, as mine did the same.

"No thank you mother." I informed her, as softly as I could, considering my annoyance at being asked for the third time, attempting to hide my iciness behind a smile. My mother was overdressed for the airport, a sleek black cocktail dress and a pair of top-of-the-range stiletto heels, whilst I was dressed awfully, my trouser legs rolled up at the bottom, making me look like an idiot, but saving the white of the material from ruin. I was however, now wearing a scarf, a black and white checked item with a price tag close to five hundred pounds. A 'going away gift' from my mother.

"If you're sure…" My mother continued, with great concern, acting as if I didn't quite know how to cope with my own life. It was ironic that she had been the one to send me to private school, if only to bring me home three days later and ship me off to a better one.

The College of Seiðr, they called it. A prestigious school far out in Nebraska, far away from anything it seemed like. Transport there was by 'Private Jets running from an airport near you' as it had claimed on the letter. We also had no baggage allowance, a rule which I felt I hadn't abused, five cases for one person were a fair amount. We were only allowed one piece of hand luggage though. That _was_ disappointing.

"I'm sure mother…" I whispered again, taking a few deep breaths to calm me down after the annoying, babying comments she had hit me with, nothing annoyed me more than being treated like someone younger than I was.

We walked underneath the glass awning that stretched above the stone floor keeping it dry, the crowds thick… Wading our way through the people was no easy task, like a heard of animals all cramming for a meal.

Once we had managed our way through the masses of people, who I discovered were waiting for a bus, not trying to get into the airport, we made a quick and easy beeline to the revolving doors, stepping into the most time consuming structure known to man.

The cool air of the terminal hit me like a wave of ice, the air conditioning really putting out some chill. My bare forearms were attacked with goosebumps from the air and I shuddered, but my mother simply looked down at the laminate she had in her hands, a sheet of guidance provided as courtesy from Seiðr.

"Zone E…" She said briskly, to no one in particular, before strutting off towards the appropriate bay of desks, behind all of which a somewhat pleasant looking attractive twenty-something with a smile that was faker than their breast implants stood, shuffling.

"Hello there." The woman smiled, looking at us as if she had just inhaled some form of cocaine supplement. "Welcome to Stansted." She continued, before my mother wordlessly handed over the ticket, looking down at the woman in a way which only a professional snob could. I was jealous.

"Okay Master Rocheford, your flight is due to leave in three hours, you can enjoy the airports facilities until then and your flight has exclusive use of the 'No One' lounge at gate 16, which is also your gate of departure." The woman explained, though I had lost interest in anything she had to say after the 'No One' Lounge.

It was clear that she had read it from a card which told her what to say, and it would take a true idiot to not realise that 'No. 1' actually read 'Number One'. I wasn't sure that I would trust her with my belongings which she was strapping 'Very Heavy' stickers too; sending them down a conveyer belt and into what I hoped was the right plane.

"And madam, I'm afraid that you aren't allowed to accompany your son past security." She then stated, leading to my mother letting out a sigh and her mouth falling agape. Her face held a defeated look when she looked at me, as if we had planned to do something beyond security, which we had not.

There were a few brief seconds before my mother tackled me with a ferocious hug, to which I staggered, and would have almost lost my balance if not for the desk at my back.

"Your father is sending you away for schooling; I am sending you for happiness. I expect to know all about him in the Christmas holidays." She whispered into my ear, before releasing me from the bear grip, moving her finger up to her eye to wipe away a tear. I knew what she meant. She expected me to meet some boy at the school and fall in love, she knew I was gay, I told her the second I realised.

I fought back a tear as I said 'Goodbye' to her, before slinging my bag over my shoulder and taking my passport and ticket off of the woman's desk, adamant not to look back at my heartbroken mother.

I descended through the airport, into the large queue leading to security without giving her so much as a glance, knowing that to tear up now would be to embarrass myself thoroughly. Obviously the queue was not one of the fast moving variety, my headphones finding their way into my ears quickly leading to me having to fight off a dance.

My bag and phone and headphones were all soon-ish in a plastic tray going through a box, my belongings being spied on through an x-ray to check that I wasn't hiding guns or explosives in my stuff. But of course, the metal detector set off as I walked through.

Eyes were on me and people started to tut and huff about it, my unintentional causing of a slight hold up upsetting them all. Even the man behind the metal detector, looking at the screen, seeing our belongings, sniggered immaturely. I cursed at it, realising that it would have been my pendant.

My pendant, hanging softly around my neck, was a silver chain, very good quality, hanging around my neck, supporting the soft weight of a Rune from my neck. The rune was a small pebble of dark, lustrous rock, a 'p' shape carved into it in a manner which made the character stand out greatly to the rock. The character was Wunjo, which translated to Joy, it wasn't exactly summing me up to a tee, but it made a point about who I was. And it looked nice too.

The pendant was very expensive and a gift, which is why it took a little to hand it over to the man who was about to wand me, before he did so. The rod sliding up through the space between my legs, drifting above my inner thigh, moving centimetres from my crotch, before drifting back down the other side.

There was something about the process which felt as if I was being robbed of my dignity, especially when I caught the eyes of the sexiest specimen of a male I had ever seen. Sandy blond hair, tanned skin, eyes like the tropical sea. The boy gave me the once over, and even his look made me uncomfortable. So when his tongue flitted out across his lips and his eyes stayed on mine, it took everything I had to stay standing.

A muscular boy with an even deeper tan snapped the sexual god out of his teasing trance, before the pair wandered off towards the departure lounge, leaving me in awe of his beauty. As I reclaimed my belongings and slung my pendant back on, bag back onto my shoulder, I pondered.

They looked about a year older than me, so there was a chance that they were going to be going to Seiðr… It was something which I desired greatly, but also didn't want… Imagine rooming with someone who got you hot under the collar just by being there… That would be a hard time.

I decided that I didn't need to waste my money on VAT free items, and I headed straight to the No. 1 lounge, eager to simply sit down and relax, not stress over the upcoming events like my mother had made me. Things were sometimes easier to deal with when I was on my own.

* * *

The journey to the lounge had been interesting. I had caught sight of the sexual demon heading into Ted Baker with his friend, which indicated his ideal price range wasn't too shabby, fifty pounds a shirt wasn't bad. I fought off the idea of following him because it would be obvious. I didn't need any clothes from there; everything I had in my cases was more expensive and nicer. I didn't want to look like a stalker.

I needed to take some form of transit train, shuttle bus thing to get to the terminals, which was rather uneasy on the legs, and the stomach. But it was a short trip, and I was very quickly back on unmoving floor again, heading towards gate sixteen.

The lounge looked upper class from the outside, the glass doors engraved with the name of the lounge, a woman standing by the doors with natural beauty, not processed breasts and a fake trout pout. She asked me for my boarding pass and I presented it instantly, her cerulean eyes scanning for the number before stepping aside and muttering a breezy and well-rehearsed 'Welcome to number one'.

I walked past her, into the lounge, the air conditioning freezing me even more, bringing me to the point of jacket consideration. As I sat down on the comfortable, if not a little cold, leather sofa, I opened my messenger bag and produced my jacket, a dark grey cardigan which was warmer than it looked at first glance.

During this, something clattered to the floor, leading me to sigh, noting that it had gone underneath the sofa I was on. Usually, had I been at home, the minor inconvenience could have been solved by a subtle phase-through the leather to reach down and grab whatever I had dropped. I couldn't do that here.

I shrugged into my cardigan before getting down on my knees and reaching underneath the sofa, my hand flailing about aimlessly into the zone of darkness that I couldn't see, looking for something and to be honest I didn't actually know what I was looking for. My hand brushed against something, something hard and I assumed that it was what had been dropped.

I gripped it, pulling it out and looking at it, some form of mall box with a large neon post-it note stuck on it. The note said, written in a pink pen that was difficult to read against the yellow paper;

_'I'm sure you'll have need for these, be safe._

_Mum. Xxx'_

I ripped off the post-it and looked at what was underneath, what my mother was so sure I would need. I'm sure that I turned fifty shades of crimson right there, in the luxury lounge awaiting a plane to go to a school. Condoms. My mother had gifted me, as going away gifts, a luxurious scarf, and a box of condoms.

"I reckon we have time now. Wanna?" A voice came from behind me. A tone definitely English but laced with Australian tones which made the hairs on my arms stand up on ends. I had a feeling that I knew who the voice belonged to. I stood, slowly, turning around to look at the boy who had just flirted with me, well asked me for sex.

I wasn't shocked when I saw the face, in fact I was actually waiting for it. Somehow my heart still skipped a beat when I looked at his face up close, something about it all that made me tingle all over.

My eyes met his, his tropical lakes of irises within which a large black pupil dwelled. His eyes were decorated by lashes which were beautiful, but in no way made him look feminine, highlighting his eyes like rings of dark lust. His skin was a bronzed over tan, not dissimilar to mine, though his body clearly held more muscle than mine, even through his checked turquoise and black shirt it was clear.

Only then did it occur to me that he was awaiting an answer, and I wasn't even sure what answer I should have given him myself. But for all my tact and wiles, my tongue slipped away from me…

"Do I look like a cheap whore in this? I mean the outfit_ only_ cost about two grand! Do I look like a cheap whore wearing it?" I assaulted him, unbeknown to myself how utterly idiotic I sounded, but his tongue was like silver, he didn't even miss a beat.

"I think you'd look nicer wearing an outfit that _only_ cost nothing…" He whispered, moving to sit nonchalantly to the seat next to me sitting down his denim clad arse on the leather, slinging his messenger bag down to the floor and plucking out a book that was nestled on top of the rest of the stuff in there.

I was stunned into silence, never having been spoken to quite in the way he had just said it. They were the sort of things that only were said in the very sleaziest porno's and he said them in a tone and manner that wouldn't be out of place at Henley.

"Well sit down then… You're making _me_ tired just standing there." He said, not even looking out of the book he was reading. I just looked at him for a few moments, before cautiously sitting down myself, watching him carefully as if he were a venomous snake ready to strike.

A few minutes passed, the only noise being him turning the pages of the book, before I decided that I could cope with hearing his voice again.

"I'm Zephyr… I'm sorry about going all… Y'know earlier…" I mumbled, looking up at him with somewhat of a pout going on, knowing that he could hear, because his eyes stayed on the page, but he stopped reading, that was easy to see.

Silence passed again before I heard his velvety tones wafting through the air at me once again.

"Leonardo Ryan. Sex god. Stud muffin. And all round perfect specimen of man at your service." He returned, giving me a short little bow of the head to show me that he was at my service. I frowned at his comment, and he caught my eye, sticking his tongue out and winking slyly.

"Leo stop terrorising the new kid." Another voice rung out, turning to see the tanned muscular boy that appeared to be Leonardo's friend sitting down on the opposite sofa to us, smiling softly as the apparent 'Sex god, stud muffin and all round perfect specimen of man' smirked and addressed his friend.

"Bite me." He replied, sticking out the pink muscle once again, before I decided to stick in my headphones and listen the remaining hours away.

"You know I don't swing that way Leo." Was the last thing I heard before started to listen to the first song that 'random' decided to give me, which happened to be 'Santa Baby' by Kylie Minogue. I shook my head lightly, but didn't change the track.

I stayed in the trance for a while, eyes closed, before my headphone was hooked out of the ear, my ear overpowered by the echoing female voice telling me that, 'Private flight TS-19 to Nebraska is now boarding at gate 16.'

I turned to face the culprit of the earphone removal, planning on explaining that they were expensive, but instead coming within an inch of the lips of the apparent sex god Leonardo. Our noses brushed and I couldn't help but blush at the close contact, his eyes looked so much more beautiful up close.

"Time to leave sleeping beauty." He breathed onto my face, leaving hints of cinnamon in its wake. Usually I would have commented that I wasn't asleep, but since the boy called me beautiful I was willing to let it slide. He also gave me the lightest kiss on the cheek, which had me blushing like a little girl, something I didn't plan to draw attention to.

I followed him and his tanned friend out towards the gate, where a quick flash of our boarding passes to the woman behind a counter set us on our way to the plane, and of course some more waiting.

No sooner had be descended what seemed like a never ending flight of staircases, we had to cross the walkway with the quaint little A4 adverts on the walls, before stepping into a plane… A plane… I don't think that is what I would have called it.

It looked more like some form of funky teenage café to me. The floor was a black lush carpet with a section in white that was dotted with colourful beanbags that would probably be unused through the flight, at least during take-off and landing… The actual seating was also odd, a collection of two and three seat sofa's with seatbelts somehow fastened into the design. To make it even odder, the sofas were facing each other as if it were a restaurant, a table perched between them.

It was then that I started to realise that this school had access to some serious funding...

I was ahead of Leonardo at this point, much to my eyes dismay of not being able to stare at his arse, so I simply moved to the first sofa, sitting down in the front corner of the plane. To my surprise, and equal horror and delight, Leo threw himself down next to me, his friend sitting opposite us, shaking his head slightly.

I soon saw why, a short way into the flight, where the night was hanging over heavily, probably one in the morning, I was awoken by something. When I looked at the source I couldn't help but be amazed. In his sleep, somehow, Leo had wrestled his arm around my shoulders and had pulled me into his body. I was pressed up against his side with his head resting on mine.

I couldn't help thinking that if he dribbled in his sleep I would know all about it, but I was too comfortable and tried to care. Maybe a room with this hunk wouldn't be so bad after all. I hadn't made my decisions about him yet but from what I guessed he wasn't as much of a tool as I had thought. Not yet anyway…

_**Hope you liked it :) Let me know?**_

_**xxx**_


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